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BOLSHEVISM 

AND 

THE  UNITED  STATES 


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BOLSHEVISM 

AND 

THE  UNITED  STATES 

By 

CHARLES  EDWARD  RUSSELL 

Author  of  The  Uprising  of  the  Many;  Business, 

the  Heart  of  the  Nation;  The  Story  of 

Wendell  Phillips,  etc.,  etc. 


/m/ 


INDIANAPOLIS 

THE  BOBBS-MERRILL  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


Copyright  1919 
The  Bobbs-Merrill  Company 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  Ainerica 


'^i^  la 


"There  is  no  human  wisdom  but  collective 
wisdom.  There  is  no  basis  for  human  govern- 
ment except  the  consent  of  the  governed." 


85S663 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I    The  Seeds  of  the  New  Faith  ...  1 

II    The  First  Call  to  Arms      ....  20 

III  The  Passing  of  the  Ballot  Box    .     .  49 

IV  What  is  Bolshevism? 66 

y    Rights  and  Liberties  Under  the  New 

System 106 

VI    Bolshevism  and  the  Peasants       .     .  136 

VII    Governmental  Efficiency    .     .     .     .  153 

VIII    Labor  and  Transportation  ....  176 

IX    The  Old  Autocracy  and  the  New     .  200 

X    In  the  Test  Tube  of  Practice  .     .     .  245 

XI    A  Cloud  of  Witnesses 261 

XII    Rise  and  Progress  of  American  Bol- 
shevism       296 

XIII    Palliatives  and  Remedies    .     ♦     ,     .  327 


BOLSHEVISM 

AND 

THE  UNITED  STATES 


BOLSHEVISM 

AND 

THE  UNITED  STATES 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  SEEDS  OF  THE  NEW  FAITH 

There  was  once  a  camel  driver,  unlettered, 
but  shrewdly  observant  of  men  and  manners, 
who  was  able,  by  grace  of  some  power  of  vision 
and  more  of  wit  and  will,  to  create  a  religion 
that  came  to  be  professed  by  more  than  two 
hundred  million  people.  Since  his  time  the 
world  has  not  known  the  rise  of  any  one  man's 
creed,  philosophy  or  power  comparable  to  the 
progress  of  the  Bolshevism  of  Nicolai  Lenine, 
and  not  even  Mohammedanism  spread  so 
swiftly  nor  inspired  to  a  greater  fanaticism. 

1 


2  BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

The  outline  of  this  magical  and  anomalous 
story  that  seems  so  far  out  of  our  time  and 
psychology,  may  be  gaged  between  two  adjacent 
facts.  On  March  23,  1917,  all  the  persons  in 
all  the  world  that  had  ever  heard  of  Bolshevism 
as  a  doctrine  may  have  numbered  a  thousand. 
On  January  23,  1919,  when  the  chief  apostles 
of  the  new  faith  issued  their  call  for  the  first 
international  Bolshevic  congress  these  were  the 
groups  that  were  summoned: 

1.  The  Spartacus  League  of  Germany. 

2.  The  Communist  (or  Bolshevist)  party  of  Russia. 

3.  The  Communist  party  of  German  Austria. 

4.  The  Communist  party  of  Hungarj'. 

5.  The  Communist  party  of  Finland. 

6.  The  Communist  party  of  Poland. 

7.  The  Communist  party  of  Esthonia. 

8.  The  Communist  party  of  Lettonia. 

9.  The  Communist  party  of  Lithuania. 
10.  The  Communist  party  of  White  Russia. 
IL  The  Communist  party  of  Ukrainia. 

12.  The  Revolutionary  Element  among  the  Tchecko-Slovaks. 

13.  The  Social  Democratic  party  of  Bulgaria. 

14.  The  Social  Democratic  party  of  Roumania. 

15.  The  Left  Wing  of  the  Social  Democratic  party  of  Serbia. 

16.  The  Left  Wing  of  the  Social  Democratic  party  of  Sweden. 

17.  The  Social  Democratic  party  of  Norway. 


THE  SEEDS  OF  THE  NEW  FAITH  3 

18.  A  Revolutionary  group  in  Denmark. 

19.  The  Communist  party  of  Holland. 

20.  The  Revolutionary  element  of  the  Labor  party  of  Belgium. 

21.  The  Revolutionary  group  in  the  Socialist  party  of  France. 

22.  The  Revolutionary  element  of  the  SjTidicaUsts  of  France. 

23.  The  Left  Wing  of  the  Social  Democratic  party  of  Switzer- 

land, 

24.  The  Socialist  party  of  Italy. 

25.  The  Left  Wing  of  the  Sociahst  party  of  Spain. 

26.  The  Left  Wing  of  the  Socialist  party  of  Portugal. 

27.  The  Socialist  party  of  Great  Britain  (Glasgow  movement). 

28.  The  Independent  Social  Revolutionary  party  of  Great 

Britain. 

29.  The  I.  W.  W.  K.  of  England. 

30.  The  I.  W.  W.  of  England. 

31.  The  Revolutionary  elements  in  Ireland. 

32.  The  Revolutionary  elements  among  the  Shop  Stewards 

of  Great  Britain. 

33.  The  Socialist  Labor  party  of  the  United  States. 

34.  The  Left  Wing  of  the  Socialist  party  of  the  United  States, 

represented  by  Debs  and  the  SociaUst  Propaganda 
League. 

35.  The  I.  W.  W.  of  the  United  States. 

36.  The  I.  W.  W.  of  AustraUa. 

37.  The  American  Workers'  International  Industrial  Union 

of  the  United  States. 

38.  The  Socialist  groups  of  Tokio  and  Samoa. 

39.  The  Young  People's  International  Socialist  League. 


4  BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

From  what  might  be  called  a  student's  cell 
in  the  city  of  Cracow,  Austria,  to  the  utmost 
Orient  and  the  islands  of  the  South  Seas,  tak- 
ing in  much  territory  between,  and  all  in  these 
few  months — wonderful  is  the  flight,  all  must 
admit  it  to  be  so !  The  creed  of  one  man  become 
already  the  creed  of  millions  and  still  going  on 
to  other  millions  and  to  others — it  is  plain  as 
day  that  about  the  new  faith  is  something  pow- 
erfully appealing  to  the  latent  inclinations  of 
a  part  of  each  community.  It  has  something 
that  formulates  what  many  men  feel  or  wish 
to  feel  or  are  willing  to  feel.  He  has  struck 
a  new  chord  somewhere,  this  Nicolai  Lenine; 
he  is  entitled  to  the  credit.  Let  him  die  even 
now  and  he  will  have  an  enduring  place  in 
history.  He  said  something  new  and  caused 
millions  to  believe  it  and  thousands  to  be  ready 
to  die  for  it. 

Who  is  this  extraordinary  person?  For  ex- 
traordinary I  think  you  would  call  him,  even 
to  look  at  him,  if  you  are  fair-minded.  I  have 
known  some  of  those  that  hated  him  to  contend 
nothing  was  remarkable  about  his  face  and 
figure,  but  in  the  old  National  Council  of  Rus- 
sia strangers  invariably  singled  him  for  their 
inquiries.  The  great  doming  head,  the  excel- 
lent forehead,  the  long,  lean  jaws,  the  expres- 


THE   SEEDS   OF  THE   NEW   FAITH  5 

sion  of  mastery,  of  quiet  strength,  self-posses- 
sion, iron-will;  the  look  of  a  man  accustomed 
to  deal  with  emergencies  and  to  outwit  his 
fellows ;  the  watchful,  wary  eyes,  distinguished 
him  to  any  observation.  Frantic  caricatures 
have  drawn  him  a  fiend  of  cruelty,  malignity, 
ferocity;  I  protest  to  you  that  these  are  base- 
less libels.  He  has  the  voice,  the  mien,  the 
manners,  the  language  of  a  man  of  culture  and 
research;  he  will  not  rant,  he  will  not  use  ex- 
travagant language,  he  will  show  no  trait  of 
the  demagogue  or  tyrant.  He  will  seem  always 
to  have  weighed,  deliberated,  considered  and  to 
be  speaking  without  a  touch  of  insincerity  the 
findings  of  his  inquest.  And  yet  there  will  be 
always  something  about  him  that  eludes  you 
and  something  you  do  not  understand. 

Like  him  or  dislike  him  (and  men  seem  apt 
to  do  one  or  the  other  beyond  reason),  certainly 
here  is  a  great  figure,  his  shadow  already  fall- 
ing half-way  around  the  globe.  What  has  been 
his  career?  Some  of  it,  like  his  character, 
escapes  common  knowledge.  His  real  name  is 
Vladimir  Ulianov.  He  was  born  about  fifty 
years  ago  at  Simbirsk  on  the  river  Volga.  His 
family  has  been  incorrectly  classified  as  of  the 
Eussian  nobility,  but  of  the  Russian  gentry 
would  better  describe  it,  since  it  had  an  ancient 


6  BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

inheritance  of  a  landed  estate  but  no  title.  His 
father  held  the  office  of  a  local  judge. 

Vladimir  Ulianov  was  inducted  early  into 
Revolutionary  atmosphere.  When  he  was  still 
a  lad  his  elder  brother,  already  of  some  note 
among  the  Terrorists,  killed  a  civil  officer  of 
high  rank  and  was  hanged.  The  event  is  said, 
reasonably  enough,  to  have  embittered  and 
darkened  all  of  Vladimir's  life.  At  least  he 
swung  at  once  into  the  extreme,  irreconcilable 
group  in  the  liberty  movement,  and  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  Petrograd,  which  he  soon  entered, 
he  won  repute,  even  in  that  hotbed  of  radical- 
ism, for  the  virulence  of  his  radical  views ;  not 
the  less  genuine  because  they  must  be  covertly 
expressed. 

In  these  same  years,  or  before  them,  he  is 
supposed  to  have  imbibed  from  some  experi- 
ences of  his  land-holding  family,  that  implacable 
hatred  and  contempt  of  the  Eussian  peasant 
that  until  he  came  into  power  he  was  never  at 
the  least  pains  to  conceal.  It  is  in  Russia  the 
surest  stamp  of  caste;  as  sure  as  in  India  the 
significant  turban  twist.  All  the  Russian  land- 
lords and  landed  families  have  it.  Fifty-eight 
years  ago  the  peasant  was  fast  bound  in  serf- 
dom: from  that  overflowing  w^ell-spring  of  evil 
comes  the  inherited  hatred  of  the  land-owning 


THE  SEEDS  OF  THE  NEW  FAITH        7 

class,  that  and  none  other.  All  peoples  that 
have  been  slaves  carry  with  them  for  genera- 
tions thereafter  the  taint  of  the  slave  pen,  the 
invisible  mark  of  the  lash;  so  much  we  must 
expect.  But  it  would  not  be  in  nature  if  the 
class  hatred  thus  bred  did  not  tend  to  suffocate 
in  the  hearts  that  entertained  it  the  very  soul 
of  democracy;  and  of  all  the  schools  for  a 
future  leader  of  reforms  in  a  world  struggling 
up  to  democratic  light  none  could  possibly  be 
worse  than  to  be  reared  in  a  household  where 
former  owners  railed  against  former  slaves. 

Vladimir  Ulianov  left  the  university  without 
taking  a  degree.  The  next  few  years  he  de- 
voted to  the  writing  of  books  on  Russian 
economics ;  and  so  great  was  his  gift  in  power- 
ful expression  that  he  succeeded  in  illuminating 
even  wastes  so  bloomless  as  these.  "Ilinin" 
was  the  name  he  chose  for  his  adventures  in 
authorship;  he  had  not  lived  long  before  he 
made  it  famous  in  Russia,  for  the  excellence 
and  clarity  of  his  style  and  for  his  studies.  It 
was  not  his  only  literary  alias.  Another  name 
he  assumed  was  "Nicolai  Lenine,"  and  this  he 
finally  adopted,  discarding  all  the  others  until 
he  came  to  be  known  by  it  alone,  in  and  out  of 
literature. 

At  this  time  he  was  an  active  member  of  the 


8  BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

Social  Democratic  party,  one  of  the  two  great- 
est popular  political  organizations  in  Russia. 
Its  rival  was  the  Social  Revolutionary,  of 
which  we  are  to  hear  more  hereafter.  Another 
prominent  Social  Democrat  of  that  time  was 
Plechanoff,  for  years  a  champion  that  the  whole 
democratic  world  held  in  honor.  As  is  usual 
with  Russian  parties  the  Social  Democracy  was 
split  into  wings,  Right  and  Left ;  Left  meaning 
always  the  more  radical  and  anarchistic 
element  and  Right  signifying  the  conservatives. 
Plechanoff  was  leader  of  the  Right  wing  and 
before  long  young  Vladimir  Ulianov  came  to  be 
the  acknowledged  leader  of  the  fiery  Left. 

In  1902  the  division  became  irremediable  over 
an  issue  that  Plechanoff,  at  least,  regarded  as 
vital.  It  was  whether  the  party  should  be 
ruled  by  majority  vote  or  whether  it  should 
be  directed  from  the  top  by  a  few  men  of  as- 
sumably  superior  gifts.  Plechanoff  stood  for 
majority  rule;  Ulianov  for  the  sway  of  the 
gifted  few.  The  younger  man  won,  a  fact  not 
now  deemed  so  remarkable  as  it  then  was. 
Whether  the  democratic  sense  was  weak  in  the 
organization  or  he  had  merely  exercised  the 
rare  power  over  men  with  which  he  is  gifted 
I  do  not  know,  but  more  than  half  of  the  mem- 


THE   SEEDS   OF  THE  NEW  FAITH  9 

bership  endorsed  a  proposition  that  made  the 
very  name  of  their  party  a  jest. 

This  was  the  origin  of  the  term  Bolshevic 
as  applied  to  his  followers.  It  means  a  mem- 
ber of  the  majority.  The  defeated  faction  was 
called  Menshevic,  or  belonging  to  the  minority. 
For  years  the  wings  fought  each  other  on  issues 
cognate  to  democracy.  After  a  time  Ulianov's 
victory  was  reversed  and  the  minority  became 
the  majority,  but  the  names  were  not  changed 
and  the  red  and  fiery  Left  continued  to  be 
called  the  Bolshevics  or  majority  long  after 
they  had  dmndled  to  a  fraction  of  the  party  *s 
numerical  strength.* 

After  1902  Ulianov's  life  for  some  years  did 
not  differ  much  from  that  of  the  average  Rus- 
sian Revolutionist  of  those  times.  He  was 
often  in  flight  or  hiding  and  sometimes  in  jail ; 
like  every  other  leader  of  the  people  he  dwelt 
always  in  danger,  with  a  police  hound  at  his 
heels  and  a  spy  eavesdropping  upon  every 
word.  If  a  great  and  ineffaceable  bitterness  had 
not  entered  his  soul  he  would  have  been  made 


*  It  will  be  clear  from  this  that  the  words  "Bolshevic"  and 
"Bolshevist"  are  absurd  as  applied  to  the  followers  of 
Lenine  in  these  days  and  that  the  attempt  in  the  United 
States  to  create  the  impression  that  the  movement  is  respect- 
able because  it  means  the  rule  of  the  majority  is  sheer 
impudence. 


10         BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

differently  from  other  men.  With  him  as  with 
others  of  like  experience  a  binding,  choking 
sense  of  hideous  injustice  and  wrong  came  to 
coil  around  his  heart  and  mind  and  soul  like 
the  cold  rings  of  great  snakes  around  every 
limb.  He  could  not  move,  he  could  not  breathe 
nor  speak  nor  write  without  reminder  of  the 
incubus.  There  was  no  occupation  and  no 
diversion  that  could  cause  him  to  forget  for  an 
instant  the  cold,  slimy  thing.  He  looked  about 
him  and  saw  millions  of  his  countrymen  bowed 
under  the  same  affliction,  millions  of  lives 
darkened  and  poisoned  by  a  system  that  for 
savage  cruelty  has  no  parallel  in  all  the 
records  of  human  government  since  the  dawn 
of  civilization,  and  of  which  the  essential  prin- 
ciple had  been  obsolete  elsewhere  in  Europe 
for  fifteen  hundred  years.  He  looked  abroad 
and  saw  other  peoples  that  boasted  of  the  sun- 
light of  free  institutions,  that  professed  to  go 
erect  and  move  steadily  to  larger  freedom  and 
greater  spiritual  development.  He  looked  at 
home  again  and  saw  himself  and  his  fellows 
cheated  of  the  joy  of  life,  crawling  to  the  grave 
with  bits  in  their  mouths  and  saddles  upon 
their  backs,  ridden  and  spurred  and  beaten  by 
an  arrogant  and  filthy-minded  aristocracy 
whose  one  claim  to  superiority  was  the  acci- 


THE  SEEDS  OF  THE   NEW  FAITH  11 

dent  of  birth.  He  was  born  to  these  things, 
he  grew  up  among  them,  the  time  came  when 
he  felt  on  his  owti  back  the  lash  of  the  general 
oppression,  in  his  own  soul  the  sting  of  exile 
and  the  misery  of  Russian  jails;  and  the  mind 
within  him  was  steadily  warped  and  perverted 
out  of  accepted  human  semblance.  Certain  of 
our  writers  in  the  AVestern  world  have  expressed 
much  wonder  as  to  the  origin  of  an  intellectual 
make-up  at  once  so  well-informed  and  so  cruel, 
so  powerful  and  so  callous.  Surely  the  origin 
is  plain  enough.  The  tree  is  not  more  directly 
the  offspring  of  the  seed  than  Nicolai  Lenine 
is  the  offspring  of  Czarism. 

The  same  effect,  in  varying  degrees,  was  be- 
ing produced  upon  thousands  of  other  minds. 
That  in  this  mind  it  was  so  much  more  marked 
and  startling  is  merely  because  this  mind  was 
stronger  than  the  others,  more  original,  more 
daring.  From  his  youth  he  seems  to  have  been 
accustomed  to  think  for  himself  and  to  see 
clear  through  the  weaknesses  of  the  conven- 
tional theories  of  life  and  society.  It  is  evident 
that  in  all  the  years  when  he  was  a  Revo- 
lutionary agitator,  exile,  prisoner,  he  was 
meditating  possible  remedies  for  the  existing 
horrors,  and  as  much  as  twelve  years  before 
his  sensational  entrance  upon  the  stage  of  in- 


12         BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

ternational  politics  he  told  his  friends  that  he 
had  found  the  infallible  cure. 

Learned  economist,  able  writer  though  he 
was,  he  wrote  no  books  about  his  discovery  and 
made  no  speeches  upon  it.  He  seemed  rather 
to  have  brooded  over  it,  year  after  year,  build- 
ing it  and  testing  it  by  supposititious  crises, 
turning  it  to  and  fro  until  it  seemed  to  him 
unassailable.  According  to  those  that  know 
him  best  the  idea  grew  in  his  vision  to  the  pro- 
portions of  a  new  religion,  an  entirely  new 
system  of  government  and  social  order,  the  hope 
of  a  distressed  and  sorrowful  world  to  which 
he  was  destined  to  bear  the  light.  He  had  be- 
come the  seer  and  prophet  as  well  as,  in  his 
mind,  the  creator  and  titular  bishop  of  the 
world's  final  cult. 

As  an  exile  he  lived  for  a  time  in  Finland, 
for  a  time  in  Switzerland.  From  Finland  he 
sent  forth  an  acrid  Revolutionary  journal  called 
The  Spark.  When  the  ill-fated  Revolution  of 
1905  broke  he  returned  to  Russia  to  take  his 
share  in  the  uprisings.  With  the  collapse  of 
the  people's  cause  he  fled  to  Cracow  in  Austria, 
not  far  from  the  Russian  border.  Here  he 
dwelt  for  years  in  safety  although  Austria  and 
Germany  were  seizing  and  returning  by  thou- 
sands other  Russian  refugees  that  had  sought 


THE   SEEDS   OF  THE   NEW   FAITH  13 

similar  asylum.  This  congenial  cooperation 
of  the  three  autocracies  to  sustain  in  Europe 
the  autocratic  cause  has  been  very  little  noted, 
although  nothing  of  the  times  was  more  signif- 
icant or  boded  more  evil.  While  in  the  United 
States  former  subjects  of  Austria  and  Germany 
were  fiercely  assailing  the  American  govern- 
ment for  so  much  as  appearing  to  entertain  a 
proposal  for  the  return  of  escaped  Revolution- 
ists, Austria  and  Germany  had  flung  to  the 
winds  the  ancient  rights  of  the  political  refugee 
and  were  joining  the  agents  of  the  Czar  in  a 
huge  rabbit  hunt  for  Russian  republicans.  The 
fact  that  it  never  came  near  Lenine  has  been 
cited  as  evidence  that  he  was  even  then  in  the 
service  of  either  the  German  or  the  Austrian 
government.  Scores  of  his  former  associates 
were  taken  in  Cracow  itself,  almost  before  his 
eyes;  no  governmental  sleuth  ever  bothered 
him.  But  I  think  that  as  a  matter  of  fact  there 
was  neither  corruption  nor  collusion  in  this. 
The  German,  if  not  the  Austrian,  government 
must  have  perceived  that  here  was  one  molded 
exactly  to  the  German  needs:  it  would  have 
been  foolish  to  molest  a  man  with  a  faith  so 
useful  to  the  German  propaganda. 

Among  the  documents  printed  by  the  French 
government  in  its  "Diplomatic  Correspondence 


14         BOLSHEVISM   AND  THE   UNITED  STATES 

Preceding  the  War"  is  a  secret  memorandum 
prepared  by  the  most  expert  political  and  mili- 
tary strategists  of  Germany  as  to  her  wisest 
course  to  bring  on  the  war  and  insure  her  suc- 
cess in  it.  One  of  the  expedients  upon  which 
stress  is  laid  is  to  excite  and  covertly  to  sup- 
port Revolutionary  movements  in  Russia.  With 
joy  the  German  government  seems  to  have 
laid  hold  of  advice  so  congenial  to  it.  Its 
spies  that  already  swarmed  in  Russia  must 
have  minutely  reported  upon  Lenine  and  his 
Great  Idea.  If  the  German  government  had 
not  instantly  perceived  the  potentialities  of 
value  that  lay  in  such  a  man  it  would  have  lost 
its  cunning.  Lenine  safe  in  Cracow  was  a 
thousand  times  more  valuable  to  autocracy  than 
Lenine  on  a  Russian  scaffold.  Probably  no 
man,  therefore,  was  more  secure. 

After  the  man  hunt  had  ceased,  the  Revolu- 
tion being  sufficiently  expiated  in  torrents 
of  blood,  he  returned  to  Finland,  where  his 
sojourn  was  brief.  For  some  outbreak  of 
Revolutionary  fervor  he  deemed  it  wise  to  make 
a  midnight  flitting  to  Switzerland,  where  he 
lived  at  Geneva  and  functioned  in  a  small  way, 
and  after  the  manner  of  absent  treatment,  as 
the  high  priest  of  the  cult  he  had  started  with 
his  Great  Idea.     He  was  still  in  Switzerland 


THE  SEEDS  OF  THE  NEW  FAITH       15 

when  the  world  war  started  and  it  was  not  old 
when  it  gave  to  him  his  unequaled  opportunity 
for  conspicuous  trouble-making. 

For  he  was  undoubtedly  the  originator  of 
Zimmerwald;  the  gnats  and  wasps  that  issued 
from  that  place  and  buzzed  about  the  heads  of 
the  Allied  statesmen  swarmed  out  of  plots  of 
his  devising.  In  September,  1915,  when  von 
Mackensen  was  crushing  Serbia,  when  the 
western  front  was  hopelessly  deadlocked  and 
the  cause  of  the  Allies  was  almost  at  its  low- 
est, he  called  to  meet  at  Zimmerwald,  a  small 
town  near  Berne,  a  congress  of  labor  and  radi- 
cal representatives  from  all  the  belligerent  and 
neutral  nations.  Germany  and  Austria  re- 
sponded, wearing  bells;  two  notorious  defeat- 
ists and  semi-anarchists  came  from  France; 
Lenine  himself  purported  to  represent  Russia; 
several  persons  were  on  hand  from  neutral 
countries.  And  there  amid  all  these  delegates 
met  ostensibly  to  discuss  peace,  sat  unidentified, 
no  less  a  person  than  Azeff,  the  most  celebrated, 
most  skilful  and  most  unscrupulous  of  all  the 
police  agents  of  the  old  Russia  regime. 

The  presence  at  such  a  place  of  such  an  ab- 
normality throws  a  singular  light  upon 
Lenine 's  mental  make-up.  For  his  own  purpose 
he  was  willing  to  use  any  effective  tool,  even 


16         BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

this  creature  with  hands  and  soul  black  with 
blood.  For  this  was  the  man  that  used  to  plan 
and  instigate  assassinations  that  he  might  drag 
down  the  Revolutionists  he  was  paid  to  destroy ; 
this  was  he  that  used  to  betray  the  police  to 
the  patriots  and  then  the  patriots  to  the  police. 
To  millions  of  Russians  his  name  is  a  sign  of 
shuddering  horror ;  to  Lenine  he  was  useful  for 
the  Great  Idea  or  he  was  nothing. 

The  conference  announced  a  program  for 
immediate  peace.  Nothing  could  be  simpler. 
The  workers  in  every  belligerent  country  were 
to  go  on  a  general  strike  until  their  respective 
governments  should  be  willing  to  sign  a  peace 
treaty.  At  once  the  war  would  be  over,  the 
soldiers  would  throw  down  their  arms  and 
come  home,  all  would  be  joy  and  harmony.  But 
there  must  be  no  annexations  and  no  indemni- 
ties. Whether  Germany  was  to  surrender  the 
territory  she  had  grabbed  was  not  made  clear, 
but  anyway,  no  annexations,  no  indemnities, 
not  even  for  mutilated  Belgium. 

This  was  the  origin  of  that  famous  phrase 
that  presently  went  echoing  around  the  world. 
I  have  no  doubt  Lenine  himself  invented  it. 
In  the  original  it  was  "no  annexations,  no 
contributions,"  but  as  nobody  was  able  to 
guess  what  that  might  mean  those  that  helped 


THE   SEEDS   OF  THE   NEW   FAITH  17 

to  speed  it  on  its  way  amended  it  into  its  more 
familiar  form.  Even  at  that  nobody  under- 
stood exactly  what  was  intended,  but  the  sound 
was  dulcet  in  a  million  ears.  We  may  surmise 
that  to  be  effective  and  successful  a  phrase 
should  never  be  of  the  order  that  anybody  can 
well  comprehend,  or  it  will  lose  all  the  potent 
charm  of  mystery.  Lenine  doubtless  under- 
stood this  perfectly;  like  the  camel  driver,  he 
had  not  in  vain  considered  this  complex 
creature  that  is  called  man. 

Anyway,  this  phrase  was  immensely  success- 
ful and  presently  confronted  the  helmsmen  of 
every  Allied  ship.  No  annexations,  no  indem- 
nities. And  immediate  peace.  Proclaimed  by 
an  international  congress  of  workingmen  and 
social  reformers,  at  Zimmerwald,  in  Switzer- 
land. Before  long  the  origin  of  it  came  to  be 
forgotten;  all  that  the  world  knew  was  that 
some  eminent  authority  had  said  there  must 
be  no  annexations,  no  indemnities.  It  rever- 
berated, it  grew  steadily  in  favor;  and  if  the 
United  States  had  not,  soon  after  it  came  into 
the  war,  given  to  the  conflict  an  entirely  new 
aspect  as  the  crusade  of  liberty  and  democracy 
those  words  would  have  played  the  devil's  own 
part  in  making  the  terms  of  peace. 

I  have  no  doubt  that  Zimmerwald  was  planned 


18         BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

on  the  basis  of  its  possible  openings  for  the 
Great  Idea.  All  along  Lenine  believed  that  the 
war  was  the  chiefest  obstacle  to  the  applica- 
tion of  his  remedy.  While  the  war  was  on  no 
one  would  pay  any  attention  to  an3rthing  else. 
But  Zimmerwald,  while  it  made  trouble,  failed 
to  make  peace.  The  next  year  he  repeated  the 
attempt  with  a  similar  congress  at  Kienthal, 
similarly  attended,  and  with  similar  results. 
But  the  next  year  came  the  Russian  Revolution 
and  with  the  news  Lenine  must  have  seen  at 
last  his  real  chance  opening  before  him.  Al- 
most overnight  he  started  for  Petrograd,  in  a 
sumptuous  private  car  furnished  by  the  German 
government,  and  with  his  pockets  full  of  Ger- 
man money. 

It  is  this  part  of  his  career  that  is  most  relied 
upon  to  prove  his  essential  depravity.  With 
vigorous  fanfaring  documents  have  been 
printed  purporting  to  show  that  he  had  been 
for  a  considerable  time  in  receipt  of  much  gold 
from  the  German  government.  It  was  hardly 
necessary  to  dig  up  the  documents  to  establish 
this  fact.  Probably  Lenine  himself,  if  asked, 
would  have  furnished  all  the  needed  proofs; 
he  never  attempted  to  deny  the  transactions. 
He  said,  without  the  least  hesitation,  that  he 
took  money  from  the  German  government  and 


THE   SEEDS   OF  THE   NEW   FAITH  19 

would  take  money  from  any  other  source  that 
offered  it;  but  the  money  he  took  was  spent 
wholly  for  propaganda  purposes:  he  kept  not 
a  doit  for  his  own  uses.  The  cause  he  had  in- 
augurated could  advance  only  with  money;  he 
had  no  means  and  no  access  to  those  that  had ; 
and  he  had  not  the  least  objection  to  accepting 
money  from  an  enemy,  nor  to  using  the  same 
money  against  the  same  enemy  when  occasion 
should  arise.  Any  careful  study  of  the  man 
will  show  this  to  be  wholly  probable  and  con- 
sistent with  his  character.  I  believe  he  had  the 
same  feelings  about  the  voiture  de  luxe  in 
which  he  rode  to  Russia.  He  ardently  wished 
to  be  on  his  way  for  the  Great  Idea.  The  Ger- 
man government  offered  to  put  him  into  Russia 
quickly,  comfortably,  without  expense.  He  ac- 
cepted the  offer,  knowing  all  the  time  and  full 
well  that  if  the  plan  he  was  turning  over  in 
his  mind  should  ever  succeed,  the  German  gov- 
ernment that  thought  to  gain  by  him  would 
crumple  up  like  so  much  punk. 

He  must  have  thought  of  this,  as  he  jaunted 
along  in  that  luxurious  coach,  and  if  he  is  cap- 
able of  laughter,  which  I  have  never  divined, 
he  must  have  laughed  at  the  overcunning  fooler 
that  he  believed  was  soon  to  be  fooled. 


CHAPTER  n 

THE  FIRST   CALL  TO  ARMS 

He  arrived  at  Petrograd  in  those  first  days 
after  the  downfall  of  the  ancient  tyranny,  when 
the  world  was  still  dazed  and  wondering  at  the 
magnitude  of  the  achievement.  All  his  plans 
seem  to  have  been  made  with  precision;  he  knew 
exactly  what  he  wished  to  do.  A  revolution  is 
like  a  cyclone  in  the  South  Seas ;  the  first  great 
wave  is  always  followed  by  a  second,  much 
higher;  and  upon  this  second  wave,  which  he 
purposed  to  start  and  engineer,  he  could  see 
the  Great  Idea  sweeping  over  all  Russia  and 
thence  across  the  world. 

And  what  was  the  Great  Idea? 

Most  compendiously  it  has  been  described  as 
the  Dictatorship  of  the  Proletariat.  And  ex- 
actly what  is  the  meaning  of  that  somewhat 
startling  phrase — the  Dictatorship  of  the  Pro- 
letariat? 

To  make  this  clear  we  had  better  go  back  to 
Simbirsk  and  the  days  of  Vladimir  Ulianov's 

20 


THE    FIRST   CALL  TO   AJRMS  21 

youth.  From  his  early  studies  in  economics  and 
sociology  he  seems  to  have  accepted  these  con- 
cepts as  fundamental  principles: 

Man's  concern  upon  this  earth  is  that  he  shall 
have  his  material  wants  supplied,  his  food, 
shelter,  clothing,  artificial  heat,  artificial  light. 
These  are  the  essentials.  Culture  he  may  have 
if  he  can  get  it,  but  culture  is  not  a  scientific 
essential. 

Production  and  distribution  of  the  essentials 
of  life  are  the  objects  of  any  social  system  and 
only  those  engaged  in  the  producing  and  dis- 
tributing of  essentials  are  useful  to  society. 

Only  those  useful  to  society  are  entitled  to 
any  consideration  at  the  hands  of  society. 
Consequently  government  should  be  controlled 
exclusively  for  the  benefit  of  producers  and 
distributers. 

Production  and  distribution  mean  work  with 
the  hands.  Therefore  the  chief  objects  of  a 
reasonable  government's  care  are  the  hand 
workers.  Their  labor  is  the  essential  of  life; 
without  it  the  race  would  perish.  All  men  live 
either  upon  their  own  labor  or  upon  that  of 
others.  Nature  is  ready  to  do  her  part  for 
man's  life  but  she  furnishes  nothing  that  is 
available  without  hand  labor.  Yet  society,  as 
at  present  organized,  seems  to  pursue  with  a 


22         BOLSHEVISM  AND  THE   UNITED   STATES 

fiendish  hatred  all  those  that  follow  the  useful 
and  necessary  pursuits.  In  every  country,  in 
even  the  countries  that  are  called  the  freest, 
there  is  some  palpable  stigma  upon  labor. 

From   this   as   a   beginning,   sanctioned   by 
many  a  revered  authority  in  the  dismal  science 
that  he  pursued,  he  seems  to  have  wandered 
upon  strange  and  erratic  paths  wherein  half- 
truths  shone  as  realities  and  philosophy  be- 
came a  series  of  deductions  from  these.     He 
saw  that  in  his  own  country  labor  was  frankly 
despised  and  spat  upon.     In  the  so-called  de- 
mocracies men  that  worked  and  served  society 
were  never  admitted  to  places  of  importance 
or  power.    Governments  everywhere  were  made 
up  and  conducted  by  idlers  "or  parasites.    In 
Great  Britain,  which  boasted  most  of  its  de- 
mocracy, a  large  part  of  the  working  element 
was  directly  excluded  from  the  franchise.    In 
the  republics  of  France  and  the  United  States 
the  propertied  classes  were  able  to  work  their 
will  and  hold   over  the  country  an  imperial 
sway.     Whatever  these   classes   wanted  they 
had,  no  matter  how  small  might  be  their  num- 
bers in  comparison  with  the  workers. 

Hence,  the  only  salvation  was  to  reverse  this 
system  and  put  the  hand  workers  in  the  places 
and  power  now  held  by  the  propertied  classes. 


THE   FIRST   CALL  TO   ARMS  23 

Out  of  these  conditions  arose  war  and  most 
of  the  other  evils  that  afflicted  mankind.  The 
workers  in  all  countries  were  brothers  and  had 
no  interests  except  the  interests  of  their  class, 
recognizing  no  national  boundaries  and  no  na- 
tional obligations.  Wars  were  made  only  be- 
cause the  parasite  classes  desired  war  for  the 
sake  of  profits.  Under  the  accepted  system  of 
government  these  classes  were  able  to  compel 
the  producing  classes  to  go  forth  to  fight.  The 
producing  classes  did  not  wish  to  fight  and 
cared  nothing  about  the  pretended  issue  in- 
volved in  any  war,  but  with  the  existing  style 
of  government  the  producers  were  the  slaves 
of  the  parasites  and  consequently  must  fight 
when  they  were  told  to  fight. 

These  must  have  been  the  main  ideas  of  his 
philosophy,  for  they  came  shortly  after  to  be 
vehemently  asserted  by  his  followers.  It 
seemed  to  him,  viewing  all  these  conditions  to- 
gether, that  what  was  called  democracy  was 
for  the  workers  a  total  failure.  Tw^elve  years 
before  in  talking  of  his  plans  he  had  made  no 
secret  of  his  intentions  to  proceed  without  it. 
"What  is  democracy,  he  used  to  ask,  but  the 
hypnotic  phrase  with  which  in  your  so-called 
free  countries  the  majorities  are  lulled  into 
quiescence!      Behold,    in    France,    in    Great 


24         BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

Britain,  in  the  United  States,  the  workers  en- 
dowed with  the  ballot  to  which  they  have  been 
induced  to  ascribe  magical  virtues.  What  is  it 
in  reality  but  a  pretty  plaything?  With  it  they 
romp  about,  trundle  to  and  fro,  play  at  voting, 
play  at  being  members  of  this  party  or  that, 
roll  the  hoop  called  the  franchise  around  the 
circle  called  politics,  chortle,  gibber  and  quar- 
rel, while  their  masters  fatten  upon  the  world's 
larder  properly  belonging  to  the  toilers. 

Democracies,  he  said  to  an  interviewer  in 
1907,  were  in  fact  the  toilers'  curse  and 
bane.  Given  an  absolute  monarchy  and  as  it 
had  little  now  to  offer  that  could  distract  the 
toiler's  mind  there  was  always  a  chance  that 
he  would  arise,  cast  it  off  and  come  truly  into 
his  own.  But  given  a  pseudo-democracy,  a 
bourgeois  republic  like  France,  a  capitalistic 
side  show  like  the  United  States,  and  the  toiler 
would  continue  to  be  charmed  with  empty 
phrases  and  stand  like  a  yokel  at  a  fair  gaping 
at  foolish  tricks. 

In  all  these  countries,  he  said,  the  workers 
were  the  majority.  Yet  in  all  these  countries 
the  workers  were  ruled,  exploited,  plundered 
and  kept  submerged  by  the  minority.  To  talk 
then  about  democracy  as  an  advantage  to  the 
race  was  absurd.    That  part  of  the  community 


THE   FIRST   CALL   TO   ARMS  25 

that  alone  was  important  to  it,  the  part  upon 
whose  toil  all  the  rest  existed,  was  condemned 
everywhere  to  scanty  fare,  miserable  dwellings, 
fonl  air,  dreary  lives.  The  part  that  contri- 
buted nothing  to  society,  that  made  nothing, 
produced  nothing,  helped  nothing,  that  part 
lived  in  luxury  and  even  superfluity.  And  all 
the  time  the  wretched  producers  that  wasted 
their  lives  for  the  others  constituted  the  major- 
ity of  the  population,  and  if  the  theory  of 
democracy  were  correct  should  have  been  able 
to  oust  the  idlers  and  take  for  themselves  the 
comforts  of  life  to  which  their  social  service 
entitled  them. 

The  Dictatorship  of  the  Proletariat  would 
rectify  these  wrongs.  It  would  bring  in  the 
time  when  the  producers,  as  the  only  important 
members  of  the  community,  should  have  all 
the  luxuries  of  life  and  the  idlers  should  have 
the  penury  and  hardships;  when  the  idlers 
should  eat  of  the  dish  of  humiliation  and  wrong 
they  now  set  before  labor;  when  the  producers 
should  possess  the  government  and  the  idlers 
and  parasites  be  excluded. 

But  he  would  have  such  a  government  erected 
in  a  new  way  and  wdthout  this  democracy, 
which  had  proved  to  be  only  a  delusion  to  the 
workers  and  an  additional  weapon  in  the  hands 


26         BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

of  the  parasite  class.  He  would  have  a  benevo- 
lent despotism  conducted  in  the  interest  of  the 
workers  by  men  wholly  devoted  to  the  workers' 
welfare.  He  would  have  a  kind-hearted  autoc- 
racy, its  kindness  limited  strictly  to  the  work- 
ing class.  The  ballot  box  had  failed ;  let  it  cease 
to  daff  and  swindle  the  toiler.  Put  all  power 
into  the  hands  of  a  good,  sympathetic  despot; 
that  was  the  essence  of  his  theory,  and  without 
doubt  he  knew  all  the  time  where  a  despot  of 
that  kind  could  be  had. 

And  yet  we  should  beware  of  the*  temptation 
to  think  that  he  was  planning,  working  or  con- 
triving for  himself.  If  we  must  think  but  evil 
of  one  with  whom  we  disagree  it  would  be  most 
easy  to  construct  a  false  Lenine,  ascribe  to  him 
the  lowest  motive  of  selfishness  and  hold  him 
to  the  world's  scorn,  a  shallow  gamester  and 
trickster.  Believe  me,  this  is  no  such  man. 
I  have  not  the  least  doubt  that  if  at  any  time 
he  could  find  a  person  as  much  imbued  as  he 
with  this  new  faith  of  emancipation  for  the 
working  class  and  as  competent  to  give  orders 
he  would  gladly  retire  from  the  machine  he  has 
constructed. 

What  then  does  he  want?  What  is  his 
foible,  and  for  what  advantage  to  himself  does 
he  pursue  his  course!    Does  he  want  money? 


THE   FIRST   CALL  TO   ARMS  27 

All  trustworthy  accounts  agree  that  for  him- 
self he  is  immune  to  it;  he  knows  nothing  and 
cares  nothing  about  it.  He  could  have  secured 
for  himself  money  in  unlimited  quantities;  the 
treasury  of  the  country,  or  what  was  left  of  it, 
was  open  to  him.  He  could  have  had  mil- 
lions from  Germany,  not  in  wall-papering 
roubles  but  in  gold,  actual  gold,  become 
now  the  greatest  of  all  Europe's  curiosities; 
and  still,  so  far  as  can  be  ascertained, 
he  is  personally  without  means.  There  is  in 
this  country  a  common  belief,  unfortunately 
created  and  more  unfortunately  fostered,  that 
he  is  no  better  than  a  grafter.  It  is  a  great 
error.  Men  that  underestimate  their  enemy 
usually  walk  the  old  Braddock  trail  to  the  like 
defeat.  This  is  no  grafter,  this  is  no  mercenary 
with  a  country  to  sell  out.  If  he  were  the  stage 
would  long  ago  have  been  freed  of  his  presence. 
Strange  that  this  obvious  fact  seems  never  to 
have  occurred  to  those  that  malign  and  belittle 
him.  Easy  would  be  the  problem  of  Russia  if 
organized  society  had  nothing  to  deal  with  there 
but  grafters  and  bribe  eaters  I 

What  then?  Is  it  power  that  he  seeks?  Has 
he  a  picture  of  himself  as  the  ruler  of  the 
world's  workers,  seated  upon  a  wonder-making 
throne,  sceptering  it  over  an  empire  far  greater 


28         BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

than  Germany  ever  dreamed  of,  the  working 
class  everywhere  hanging  upon  his  beck  and 
nod,  a  new  kind  of  emperor  of  a  new  kind  of 
empire,  all  the  governing  power  of  all  the  world 
in  the  control  of  the  proletariat  and  he  in  the 
proletariat's  sole  command,  a  conqueror  greater 
than  Kublai  Khan  and  Napoleon  in  one,  an  ad- 
ministrator endowed  with  almost  inconceivable 
power? 

He  has  no  such  dreams,  no  such  desire. 
Once  more  the  problem  he  has  made  for  the 
world  would  be  much  simpler  if  he  would  but 
respond  to  the  common  conceptions  of  him. 
"What  makes  it  so  hard  is  that  with  entire  sin- 
cerity and  resignation  this  man  looks  forward 
to  martyrdom! 

Martyrdom — he  expects  it  and  desires  it. 
Hence  he  does  not  care,  he  has  no  fear,  he  has 
no  appetites  nor  lusts,  he  has  no  human 
avenue  of  approach.  He  has  convinced  himself 
that  he  is  to  be  killed  for  the  cause  of  the 
proletariat  and  his  soul  is  at  peace  with  this 
outlook,  A  week  he  may  live,  or  a  year.  He 
does  not  know;  very  likely  he  does  not  specu- 
late; he  knows  only  that  it  will  happen.  The 
Bussian  fatalism  has  him  fast  bound;  his 
destiny  it  is  to  be  offered  a  sacri:fice  to  the  great 
cause  of  emancipation,  but  from  his  blood  will 


THE   FIRST  CALL  TO   ARMS  29 

spring  an  overmastering  spirit  that  will  every- 
where trumpet  the  proletariat  to  arms  and  vic- 
tory. Strung,  then,  to  its  opportunity,  it  will 
rest  not  until  it  has  won  for  all  the  world  the 
realization  of  the  New  State,  the  Earthly 
Paradise,  the  Perfected  Civilization  of  which 
he,  Vladimir  Ulianov,  otherwise  Nicolai 
Lenine,  was  the  sole  discoverer,  author  and 
originator. 

Then  his  fame  will  be  world-wide  and  eternal. 
Then  the  regenerated  social  system  will  bear 
forever  his  name.  Centuries  hence  men  will 
go  back  to  every  incident  of  his  life.  They  will 
recount  his  struggles  and  dwell  upon  his  words 
and  glorify  him,  martyr  of  the  human  cause, 
redeemer  of  mankind. 

Cast  aside  every  other  conception  you  may 
have  formed  of  this  man  and  hold  only  to  this, 
for  this  alone  is  true  and  alone  gives  you  any 
clue  to  the  riddle.  Wliy  should  he  be  daunted 
by  threats?  Nothing  can  stop,  after  his  martyr- 
dom, the  onward  sweep  of  the  Lenine  phi- 
losophy. Why  should  he  concern  himself  with 
anything  else,  with  the  futilities  of  democracy, 
the  outworn  devices  of  organized  labor,  the 
notion  that  the  hunger  of  economic  needs  can  be 
satisfied  with  the  stone  of  a  ballot?  The  way 
to  freedom  is  ordained  and  fixed  and  he  is  ad- 


30         BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

vancing  upon  it.  Why  should  lie  take  money? 
Yet  a  few  days,  a  few  weeks,  a  few  months  and 
he  will  be  dead.  Why,  finally,  should  he  hesi- 
tate to  order  the  killing  of  others?  He  himself 
is  about  to  give  his  body  a  willing  sacrifice  that 
the  workers  may  have  justice  and  the  world 
have  peace. 

He  goes  even  further  than  a  foreknowledge  of 
his  own  fate.  He  believes  that  the  movement 
he  has  started  will  be  temporarily  overwhelmed. 
He  sees  the  downfall  of  the  whole  structure  he 
has  built.  *'It  is  necessary  that  we  should 
make  our  start  in  Russia,"  he  used  to  say  twelve 
years  ago,  * '  but  the  start  we  shall  make  will  be 
crushed  there.  The  capitalistic  forces  of  other 
nations  will  crowd  in  upon  us  to  destroy  our 
organization."  He  foresees  now,  or  thinks  he 
foresees,  the  troops  oi  the  Allies  marching  into 
Russia,  the  defeat  of  the  Bolshevics,  the  resto- 
ration of  the  old  regime,  the  dishonoring  of  his 
ashes,  for  he  will  then  have  perished.  But  in 
the  recesses  of  his  gloomy  mind  he  has  decided 
that  all  this  is  needful.  In  no  other  way  can  the 
proletariat  of  the  world  be  aroused.  To-day  it 
knows  not  the  forces  that  oppress  it.  When  it 
shall  learn  that  the  only  workingmen's  govern- 
ment ever  erected  upon  this  earth  has  been 
crushed  out  in  Russia  by  the  savage  power  of 


THE   FIRST   CALL  TO   ARMS  31 

the  combined  capitalistic  governments,  every 
worker  will  spring  up  fired  with  a  deathless  pur- 
pose to  destroy  forever  the  terrible  monster 
of  capitalism,  blood-dripping  with  crime. 

Then  in  universal  battle  and  struggle,  capi- 
talism will  be  annihilated  and  the  principle  of 
the  Great  Idea  will  be  recognized  everywhere, 
the  principle  of  the  Dictatorship  of  the  Proleta- 
riat that  he  discovered,  he  then  lying  dead  in 
his  grave,  but  honored  as  no  other  man  has 
been  honored  in  history. 

He  said  much  of  this  twelve  years  ago.  He 
saw  it  all  then  as  clearly  as  now.  I  have  not 
known  anything  more  uncanny,  but  so  far,  cer- 
tainly, his  predictions  have  been  verified,  letter 
perfect.  Twelve  years  ago  he  predicted  the 
downfall  of  the  Czar,  the  rise  of  the  Bolshevics, 
the  suppression  of  the  peasants.  It  is  not 
within  the  power  of  the  sane  and  orderly  mind 
to  conceive  of  the  fulfilling  of  the  rest  of  his 
vision  but  so  far  as  a  prophet  he  is  of  a  record 
unimpeachable. 

We  can  easily  pass  off  such  a  man  with  a 
shrugged  comment  that  he  is  but  a  demagogue 
or  a  power  seeker  or  lustful  for  his  own  glory. 
No  such  formula  will  fit  this  case.  We  shall 
never  get  hold  of  Bolshevism  as  it  really  is  until 
we  come  to  see  that  it  is  largely  a  psychological 


32         BOLSHEVISM  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES 

phenomenon.  You  might  almost  say  that  a  new 
order  of  mind  has  been  discovered ;  certainly  a 
new  kind  of  mental  engine  has  come  into  work- 
ing in  the  affairs  of  men ;  likewise  a  new  kind 
of  ethics,  a  new  style  of  motive,  a  new  standard 
of  conduct.  Is  it  not  really  so?  Go  back,  for 
instance,  to  Lenine's  relations  with  Germany, 
the  private  car,  the  stacks  of  gold.  Judge  now 
by  all  you  have  experienced  hitherto  of  men  and 
motives.  Would  it  not  be  impossible  for  an 
agitator  or  popular  leader  to  remain  perfectly 
independent  after  accepting  from  an  interested 
source  favors  so  conspicuous?  Not  for  Vladi- 
mir Ulianov,  otherwise  Nicolai  Lenine.  He  took 
money  from  Germany.  With  exactly  the  same 
readiness  he  would  have  taken  money  from 
Great  Britain  or  France  or  America ;  with  equal 
readiness  thereafter  he  would  have  turned 
against  his  purse  bearer,  whatever  nation  it 
might  be.  He  had  no  affection  for  Germany; 
he  hated  it  as  he  hated  all  other  existing  forms 
of  government,  as  he  hated  republics,  consti- 
tutional monarchies,  democracy,  the  ballot  box 
and  aught  else  that  he  conceived  to  be  holding 
the  proletariat  in  chains.  To  his  mind  less  obli- 
gation was  involved  in  these  favors  than  he 
would  feel  toward  a  man  that  held  a  door  open 
for  him  or  got  out  of  his  way  in  the  street.    The 


THE   FIRST   CALL  TO   ARMS  33 

next  moment  he  would  order  the  man  that 
brought  him  the  car  to  be  shot  or  the  govern- 
ment that  supplied  it  to  be  obliterated  in  blood 
and  fire  if  either  the  man  or  the  government 
got  in  the  way  of  the  Great  Idea.  Similarly, 
he  would  combine  with  man  or  government  that 
promised  any  aid  to  that  Idea  and  then  throw 
either  over  the  side  or  to  the  wolves  when  either 
ceased  to  be  a  help. 

The  truth  is  that  with  entire  sincerity  he  had 
formulated  first,  then  accepted,  and  later  forced 
upon  his  colleagues,  this  new  conception  of  life 
— simple,  neat,  effective.  What  was  good? 
Anything  that  furthered  the  Great  Idea,  the  Dic- 
tatorship of  the  Proletariat.  What  was  evilt 
Anything  that  hampered  the  Great  Idea,  the 
Dictatorship  of  the  Proletariat.  Every  other 
standard  was  abolished.  Murder  became  good 
or  bad  solely  as  it  affected  the  real  issue ;  prop- 
erty rights  were  to  be  respected  or  scorned  on 
the  basis  of  what  would  advantage  the  cause; 
individuals  were  good  or  bad  as  they  were  re- 
lated to  that  cause.  I  think  he  would  order  his 
son,  if  he  had  one,  to  be  shot  and  stand  unmoved 
at  the  sight  if  his  son  had  put  himself  in  the 
way  of  the  Great  Idea.  No,  do  not  deem  me 
extravagant;  from  many  witnesses,  from  many 
documents,  premeditated  and  unpremeditated, 


34         BOLSHEVISM   AND  THE   UNITED   STATES 

and  from  much  observation  I  have  formed  this 
deliberate  estimate  of  the  most  remarkable  man 
of  the  times.  I  think  he  came  to  have  no  feel- 
ing except  for  the  Idea,  no  affection  for  any- 
body or  anything,  no  antagonisms  except  in  re- 
gard to  what  he  had  conceived  as  his  mission, 
absolutely  no  fear,  absolutely  no  hesitation.  He 
looked  upon  himself  as  an  instrument,  chosen 
and  shaped  for  this  work ;  life  had  nothing  else. 
I  doubt  if  the  man  ever  had  any  pleasure  or 
was  capable  of  understanding  it.  He  rose,  slept, 
ate,  drank,  walked,  breathed,  in  the  name  of  the 
Great  Idea,  the  Dictatorship  of  the  Proletariat 
— administered  from  the  top. 

It  may  be,  too,  that  the  Bolshevic  movement 
is  pathological  as  well  as  psychological,  and  that 
the  heart  of  the  mystery  is  this  strange  and 
powerful  mind  that  would  not  think  along  any 
of  the  accepted  lines  of  ratiocination  but  intro- 
duced a  process  as  much  his  own  as  the  Great 
Idea.  It  was  a  process  that  defied  every  con- 
sideration of  logic  and  coherence.  Thus,  for 
instance,  this  great  change  to  which  he  was 
committed  was  nominally  the  supremacy  of  the 
workers.  Yet  he  did  not  for  a  moment  believe 
in  the  ability  of  that  class  to  govern;  even  to 
govern  its  ov/n  ideas.  Some  one  with  absolute 
power  must  govern  in  their  behalf.     This,  of 


THE   FIRST  CALL  TO   ARMS  35 

course,  in  another  man  would  be  but  another 
evidence  of  cheap  demagogy ;  behold  a  would-be 
autocrat  maneuvering  to  get  power  into  his  own 
hands  for  his  own  selfish  purposes.  And  before 
we  have  that  conclusion  formulated,  we  are  re- 
minded once  more  of  the  crushing  fact  that  this 
man  expects  to  be  shot  and  his  whole  structure 
of  government  in  Russia  to  be  overthrown.  The 
thing  is  not  in  nature,  you  will  say,  but  there 
it  is.  Hence,  a  new  order  of  mind  has  come 
upon  the  world,  invulnerable  to  reason  or  to 
facts,  indomitable,  quick,  capable,  resourceful, 
relentless,  as  iron  as  fate. 

One  other  fact  that  is  to  be  added  to  this 
might  be  deemed  to  transfer  the  whole  study 
from  the  realm  of  the  merely  strange  to  the 
realm  of  the  weird.  His  philosophy  looked  for 
the  supremacy  of  the  working  class,  so  called, 
but  only  those  engaged  in  industrial  callings, 
that  is  to  say,  factory  hands,  transport  workers, 
railroad  men  and  the  like  were  deemed  to  be 
included  in  the  working  class.  His  view  was 
most  marvelously  limited  to  industrial  develop- 
ment; the  rest  of  the  world  he  seemed  hardly 
to  see.  There  were  at  that  time  fifty  govern- 
ments or  provinces  in  Russia.  Of  these  not 
more  than  six  could  be  said  to  be  industrially 
developed.     The  rest  were  chiefly  or  entirely 


o6         BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

peasant.  Six  out  of  fifty — the  pyramid  was  to 
stand  upon  its  head.  At  a  later  day  he  found 
something  that  he  thought  would  attract  the 
despised  peasants  to  some  liking  of  his  stupen- 
dous project,  but  he  had  nothing  for  them  at  this 
time  except  his  inherent  contempt,  and  it  seems 
to  be  a  fact  that  in  all  the  years  he  was  medi- 
tating the  Great  Idea  he  assumed  that  six  of 
the  fifty  provinces  could  be  so  managed  as  to 
manage  the  rest. 

For  this  most  amazing  notion  there  can  be, 
in  a  man  of  his  mental  endowment,  but  two 
possible  explanations.  He  designed  an  indus- 
trial form  of  government  for  a  country  having 
almost  no  industrialism.  Either,  then,  he  be- 
lieved that  his  form  of  government  would 
spread  to  countries  where  there  was  industrial- 
ism, or  he  had  become  so  saturated  with  the 
writings  of  men  in  other  countries  protesting 
against  the  industrial  wrongs  about  them  that 
he  imagined  such  conditions  where  they  did  not 
exist.  Taine  said  that  Milton's  ''Paradise 
Lost"  was  the  dream  of  a  Puritan  that  had 
fallen  asleep  over  his  Bible.  I  should  think 
the  Dictatorship  of  the  Proletariat  might  be 
the  dream  of  a  Russian  that  had  fallen  asleep 
over  his  German  economists. 

When  Lenine  arrived  at  Petrograd  in  the  first 


THE   FIRST   CALL   TO   ARMS  37 

glad  days  after  the  destruction  of  Czarism  he 
resumed  at  once  his  old  place  as  leader  of  the 
Left  wing  of  the  Social  Democratic  party,  and 
was  chosen  to  a  seat  in  the  National  Council 
of  Workmen's,  Soldiers'  and  Peasants'  Depu- 
ties, otherwise  the  All-Russia  Soviet,  which  was 
soon  the  controlling  force  in  the  new  democ- 
racy. The  first  requisite  in  his  plan  was  to  get 
Russia  out  of  the  war  and  the  soldiers  home. 
To  this  end  he  worked  without  ceasing  to  spread 
pacifism  and  increase  the  distaste  for  the 
struggle.  Not,  as  he  subsequently  proved,  be- 
cause he  had  any  objection  to  war  on  its  own 
account;  what  he  said  about  pacifism  was 
largely  in  the  day's  work.  But  he  knew  he 
could  do  nothing  toward  his  great  objective  so 
long  as  Russia  was  fighting. 

For  the  Allies  the  situation  that  now  arose 
was  one  of  the  greatest  of  their  crises.  About 
2,400,000  German  and  Austrian  troops  were 
on  the  Russian  front  from  Riga  to  Roumania. 
If  Russia  continued  to  function  in  the  war,  the 
French  and  British  on  the  western  front  could 
hold  that  line  until  the  United  States  should 
have  time  to  marshal  her  forces  and  come  to 
the  winning  of  the  victory.  If  Russia  should 
collapse  or  withdraw  from  the  conflict  great 
masses  of  German  and  Austrian  forces  would 


38         BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

be  released  from  the  Russian  front  to  pile  up 
a  huge  avalanche  on  the  western  line.  Those 
that  knew  the  actual  Allied  strength  on  that  line 
knew  well  enough  that  there  was  no  force  then 
effective  that  could  resist  such  an  onslaught. 
The  whole  crux  of  the  war  therefore  seemed 
to  turn  upon  the  action  of  Russia,  and  Lenine, 
the  most  powerful  and  subtle  mind  in  the  coun- 
try, was  working  night  and  day  to  induce  Russia 
to  draw  out. 

Against  him  were  pitted  in  fateful  combat 
the  representatives  in  Russia  of  the  Allied 
powers.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  he  over- 
whelmed them  with  a  memorable  defeat.  True, 
he  was  greatly  helped  by  the  contributions  of 
the  Allied  representatives,  most  of  whom  had 
no  understanding  of  the  real  situation  and  con- 
tinually made  the  plays  that  were  most  to  his 
desires.  In  spite  of  the  obvious  fact  that  the 
old  enginery  of  government  had  been  utterly 
wrecked  and  ditched,  they  persisted,  with 
pathetic  foolishness,  in  paying  their  court  to 
the  junk  heap.  In  spite  of  the  other  obvious 
fact  that  the  Russian  people  regarded  all  the 
Czar's  engagements  as  cancelled  when  they 
dismissed  the  Czar,  the  Allies  urged  upon  them 
the  Czar's  military  undertakings.  If  Lenine 
himself  had  dictated  their  course  he  could  have 


THE   FIRST   CALL  TO   ARMS  39 

devised  nothing  better  for  his  objects.  But  in 
truth,  they  were  never  a  match  for  him :  in  his 
hands  they  seemed  like  children.  To  take  a 
figure  from  yachting,  while  they  were  long  over- 
standing  the  mark  he  outpointed,  outmaneu- 
vered  and  outsailed  them.  By  the  middle  of 
June  it  was  apparent  that  nothing  could  save 
them  except  swift  and  radical  action  by  the 
United  States,  and  in  view  of  the  distance  and 
the  difficulty  of  arousing  the  American  nation 
to  an  issue  so  remote  and  so  unusual  the  neces- 
sary assistance  from  the  United  States  was 
hardly  possible. 

There  were  830  delegates  in  the  National 
Soviet.  Of  these  Lenine  had  at  the  most  not 
more  than  one-sixth.  Yet  he  managed  these 
with  such  skill  that  he  always  appeared  far 
more  formidable  than  he  really  was  and  steadily 
increased  his  strength  and  improved  his  posi- 
tion. 

The  first  government  erected  upon  the  fall 
of  Czarism  was  well  enough,  but  of  the  order 
of  make-shift.  It  was  headed  by  Miliukoff ,  who 
was  a  well-enough  little  man  for  any  ordinary 
task,  but  no  better  fitted  to  this  situation  than 
an  English  Tory  squire  would  have  been.  He 
was  succeeded  soon  by  a  government  headed 
by  Prince  Luvoff,  of  high  character  airl  first- 


40         BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

class  ability,  but  handicapped  by  his  title  and 
origin.  If  he  could  have  remained  in  his  post 
Russia  would  have  won  to  sanity  and  security. 
Kerensky  was  his  war  minister;  at  that  time 
very  popular  because  of  his  powerful  oratory 
and  his  services  before  the  Revolution.  Luvoff 
and  the  other  ministers  had  their  offices  in  the 
Marinsky  Palace,  opposite  the  cathedral  of  St. 
Isaac,  but  the  seat  of  the  real  government  was 
the  Cadetsky  Corpus,  which  was  on  the  other 
side  of  the  Neva,  for  there  sat  the  National 
Council  or  Soviet. 

Lenine  and  his  lieutenants  continued  with  all 
possible  diligence  to  arouse  a  feeling  against 
the  whole  of  what  had  been  the  governing  class 
in  Russia  and  against  those  likewise  that  had 
sat  upon  its  steps  or  prospered  under  its 
shadow.  Many  men  ranked  as  nobles  or  as 
wealthy  had  sympathized  whole-heartedly  with 
the  Revolution  and  some  had  made  for  it  pro- 
digious sacrifices.  In  the  propaganda  of  the 
Great  Idea  all  this  counted  for  nothing.  Such 
men  belonged  to  the  "bourgeoisie,"  which 
now,  under  the  tutelage  of  Lenine  and  his 
friends,  began  to  loom  upon  the  horizon  of 
popular  thought  as  the  frightful  demon  of 
a  nightmare.  One  of  the  ablest  members  of 
Luvoff's  cabinet  was  Tereschenko,  the  minister 


THE  FIRST  CALL  TO  ARMS  41 

of  foreign  affairs.  But  he  was  very  rich  and 
his  father  had  been  rich  before  him.  Some 
other  members  were  of  the  professional  or 
propertied  classes  and  as  bourgeois  there- 
fore as  anything  going.  These  became  the 
especial  targets  for  the  Lenine  attack.  Sunday, 
July  1,  1917,  in  Petrograd  was  given  up  to  an 
immense  demonstration  by  persons  of  all 
parties,  all  creeds,  all  theories,  near  theories 
and  fads.  All  day  long  they  paraded  about  to 
their  ineffable  satisfaction,  relieving  the  sur- 
charged breast  with  loud  cries  and  with  the 
carrying  of  many  banners.  Those  of  the  Anarch- 
ist section  carried  banners  of  black;  the  rest 
had  red.  Every  banner  expressed  some  opinion 
or  sentiment;  about  three  banners  in  five  de- 
manded that  all  power  be  concentrated  in  the 
hands  of  the  Soviet  or  that  the  bourgeois  min- 
istry should  get  its  conge  and  that  without  wait- 
ing. Some  even  denounced  the  offending 
bourgeois  ministers  by  name. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  Lenine  and  his  lieu- 
tenants saw  with  assiduous  care  to  these 
manifestations. 

He  had  now  chosen  as  his  first  adjutant  the 
famous  Leon  Trotsky,  whose  real  name  is  Leon 
Bronstein.  It  may  be  remarked  in  passing  that 
if  the  game  once  proposed  in  a  California  min- 


42         BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

ing  camp  that  night  when  euchre  and  seven-up 
had  grown  tiresome,  the  game  of  * '  Each  Fellow 
Tell  His  Real  Name,"  should  ever  be  intro- 
duced in  Russia  some  remarkable  transforma- 
tions would  occur,  names  there  being  as  handy 
as  hats  and  as  easily  put  on  and  off.  Mr.  Bron- 
stein  was  a  fanatic  after  Mr.  Ulianov's  own 
heart  and  was  also  an  orator  of  extraordinary 
power  in  a  popular  assemblage,  which  the  chief 
of  the  Bolshevics  certainly  never  was.  Besides, 
Bronstein  had  been  much  about  the  world,  had 
lived  in  the  United  States  and  in  England,  and 
possessed  an  unusual  mind,  perceptive  but  not 
reasoning  (which  was  exactly  suited  to  the  needs 
of  the  hour),  and  he  wielded  a  powerful  and 
original  pen.  I  suspected  afterward  that  some 
of  the  mottoes  we  read  on  the  banners  that  July 
Sunday  were  specimens  of  the  work  of  that 
pen. 

Mr.  Bronstein  had  lately  distinguished  him- 
self by  writing  some  powerful  newspaper  arti- 
cles supporting  the  cause  of  the  Allies, 
articles  wherein  he  showed  Russia's  security 
and  interest  to  be  in  continuing  the  war  on  that 
side.  To  a  mind  narrower  than  Lenine's  this 
might  constitute  an  objection,  in  view  of  the 
work  there  was  in  hand.  To  Lenine  all  was  one, 
Bernstein,    Azeff,    Rjevsky   the    police    agent. 


THE   FIRST   CALL   TO    ARMS  43 

Dzrjinsky  the  anti-police  agent,  so  long  as  they 
could  be  made  useful  to  his  purpose,  and  Trot- 
sky Bronstein  of  the  eloquent  tongue  and 
facile  pen — who  could  be  more  useful? 

After  that  Sunday's  showing  all  observing 
men  knew  well  enough  that  the  situation  was 
becoming  desperate  for  the  existing  govern- 
ment. The  attitude  of  the  Soviet  grew  more 
and  more  unfriendly.  Little  could  be  done  with- 
out its  sanction  and  it  fell  to  criticizing  rather 
than  to  sanctioning;  a  condition  produced  in 
part  by  an  unfortunate  lack  of  business  coordi- 
nation between  the  real  and  the  apparent  gov- 
ernment. In  these  straits  Kerensky  tried  a 
bold  stroke.  He  ordered  an  advance  of  the 
Eussian  forces  where  the  German  line  was  sup- 
posed to  be  weakest. 

The  movement  was  executed  with  some 
spirit;  the  Germans  were  driven  back  and 
lost  prisoners  and  guns.  A  stro,ng  effort, 
like  a  forlorn  hope,  was  made  to  utilize 
this  occasion  for  a  national  triumph  that 
might  bring  back  the  old  spirit.  In  the  streets 
of  Petrograd  a  procession,  organized  with  dif- 
ficulty, moved  down  to  the  great  square  in  front 
of  the  Marinsky.  Plechanoff  spoke  from  the 
balcony  of  the  palace.  The  occasion  must  have 
moved  him  strongly.    For  months  in  his  excel- 


44         BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

lent  newspaper  and  in  public  addresses  he  had 
been  arguing  and  pleading  that  Russia's  one 
chance  for  safety,  democracy  and  progress  lay 
in  the  defeat  of  Germany.  With  all  his  old-time 
fire  and  eloquence  he  raised  now  the  pean  of 
victory.  But  it  was  like  a  man  striking  at  noth- 
ing. The  response  of  the  crowd  that  heard  him, 
the  response  of  the  people  in  the  street,  was 
perfunctory ;  and  when  that  night  in  the  Soviet 
a  half-hearted  resolution  of  rejoicing  brought 
forth  the  largest  opposition  vote  that  had  yet 
been  cast  it  was  plain  that  the  end  was  not  far 
off  unless  sudden  measures  were  taken  to  head 
off  Lenine  and  his  group.  There  was  still  a 
chance  to  appeal  to  the  people  and  cause  them 
to  understand  their  vital  interests  in  the  war. 
It  was  not  taken  and  the  government  slowly 
sank  before  the  steadily  increasing  blows  of  the 
Bolshevics. 

Aided,  of  course,  and  in  every  way  abetted 
by  the  German  propaganda,  which  had  long 
been  sowing  disaffection  among  the  soldiers  as 
among  the  populace,  and  had  sent  whole  divi- 
sions homeward  by  spreading  the  historic  false- 
hood about  the  impending  distribution  of  land. 

An  ominous  sign  was  that  when  a  few  days 
later  the  Germans  counter-attacked  and  for 
miles   bent  in  the   Russian  line  before   them 


THE   FIRST   CALL   TO   ARMS  45 

there  was  no  repercussion  from  the  public  mind 
and  no  particular  objection  that  certain  of  the 
Bolshevics  made  a  display  of  their  content. 
Another  manifestation  still  more  sinister  now 
oppressed  the  general  sense.  Lenine  made  his 
long  expected  rising  against  the  government. 
Of  a  sudden,  that  July  afternoon  accompanied 
by  Trotsky,  he  led  the  Bolshevic  and  Anarchist 
workmen  from  the  factories  and  the  Anarchist 
sailors  from  the  naval  station  at  Kronstadt. 
They  seized  and  possessed  the  fortress  of  Peter 
and  Paul  and  then  marched  across  the  bridges 
to  capture  the  rest  of  the  city.  The  alleged  pre- 
text was  to  demonstrate  in  the  name  of  the 
proletariat,  or  the  part  of  it  that  Lenine  con- 
trolled, against  the  plan  of  admitting  any 
representatives  of  the  bourgeoisie  to  a  share  in 
the  government.  Any  other  pretext  would  have 
served  as  well,  for  the  real  hope  was  that  the 
masses  would  rise,  overthrow  the  existing  ad- 
ministration and  declare  at  once  the  Dictator- 
ship of  the  Proletariat. 

This  hope  failed,  but  there  was  vicious  fight- 
ing in  the  streets  before  Lenine  perceived  that 
the  populace  was  not  rallying  to  him.  He  had 
prepared  armored  cars  with  machine  guns  and 
filled  these  with  hard-fisted  sailors  from  Kron- 
stadt.    For  two  days  the  street  fighting  con- 


46  BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

tinued.  Then  the  government  forces  over- 
powered the  Bolshevics  and  the  Anarchist 
sailors  went  back  to  their  waterside  haunts. 

It  was  perfectly  characteristic  and  Russian 
that  Lenine  and  Zenoviev,  his  lieutenant,  fled 
from  Petrograd  on  this  fiasco  and  were  not  pur- 
sued, that  Trotsky  was  put  into  jail  for  a  time 
and  then  released,  and  that  Lenine  came  back 
in  safety,  became  a  candidate  for  the  Constitu- 
ent Assembly  and  was  allowed  to  take  his  seat. 
*' Everything  goes  here  except  sanity,"  said  a 
disgusted  American,  viewing  these  preparations 
for  the  eclipse. 

Luvoff  resigned  his  premiership  and  Alexan- 
der Kerensky  succeeded  him.  It  is  common  to 
blame  Kerensky  for  weakness  in  allowing  Le- 
nine and  Trotsky  to  escape  all  consequences  for 
their  treason.  I  have  never  been  convinced  that 
Kerensky  was  personally  to  blame  or  that  he 
could  have  made  a  better  performance.  He 
subsequently  thought  it  necessary  to  issue  an 
elaborate  defense,  which  may  be  of  greater  his- 
toric than  present-day  importance.  Any  one 
that  knew  Russia  at  the  time  knew  that  it  was 
still  in  a  state  of  dreamy  exaltation  about  the 
dawn  of  an  idealistic  society  in  which  there 
should  be  no  restraint  upon  word  and  little  upon 
deed.  Millions  of  persons  that  had  no  sympathy 


THE   FIKST  CALL  TO   ARMS  47 

with  Lenine's  Great  Idea  would  have  rallied  to 
him  at  any  attempt  to  interfere  with  his  free- 
dom of  speech.  The  phrase  as  applied  to  the 
street  fighting  he  had  brought  about  and  led 
will  seem  to  the  uninitiated  merely  grotesque, 
but  so  it  would  have  been  interpreted.  Lenine 
had  been  merely  demonstrating.  Is  not  demon- 
strating a  form  of  expression  and  to  be  included 
with  freedom  of  speech?  The  government  itself 
had  so  decided  in  the  case  of  the  great  and 
unlimited  demonstration  of  July  1.  Those  that 
could  not  sufficiently  express  their  ideas  in 
oratory  must  have  the  right  to  express  them  in 
parades. 

In  those  days  the  utmost  license  was  allowed 
to  speakers  and  likewise  to  the  press,  which  was 
every  day  printing  matter  that  in  England, 
France  or  America  would  have  resulted  in  the 
editor's  imprisonment;  not  because  of  its  im- 
morality but  because  of  its  rank  sedition.  When 
the  danger  of  such  publications  at  such  a  time 
was  pointed  out  to  a  Russian  he  invariably 
replied  that  such  were  the  privileges  belonging 
to  democracy,  nor  did  he  seem  able  to  perceive 
that  even  a  democratic  state  might  have  to  de- 
fend its  existence  from  foes  within  as  well 
as  foes  '^^thout.  As  to  the  shooting  of 
Lenine,   now  viewed   by   some   authorities   as 


48         BOLSHEVISM   AND  THE  UNITED   STATES 

the  one  thing  needful  to  save  the  situation,  if 
Kerensky  had  attempted  that  he  would  have  no 
more  than  pulled  the  foundations  from  under 
his  house  and  brought  down  in  August  the 
catastrophe  that  fell  upon  him  in  November. 

In  truth  what  was  wanted  was  not  a  firing 
squad  but  a  means  to  combat  the  German  and 
Bolshevic  propaganda,  and  neither  Kerensky 
nor  any  other  Eussian  could  supply  that  need. 


CHAPTER  m 

THE   PASSING   OF    THE   BALLOT   BOX 

The  government  went  from  bad  to  worse,  the 
Bolshevics  not  unskilfully  pointing  its  down- 
ward way,  along  which  it  was  liberally  assisted 
by  additional  misplays  of  the  Allies.  Some  of 
these  went  to  the  length  of  supporting  the 
ridiculous  Korniloff  revolt,  which  was  no  better 
than  a  poor  order  of  opera  bouffe  and  ob- 
viously doomed  to  failure.  They  thereby 
greatly  weakened  what  was  left  of  Kerensky's 
strength,  whereas  wisdom  for  them  was  in 
every  way  to  increase  and  sustain  it.  But  some 
of  the  Allies  could  never  divorce  themselves 
from  the  hope  that  the  monarchy  might  be  re- 
stored and  they  looked  upon  Komiloff  as  the 
man  to  restore  it.  From  the  beginning  this 
fantastic  notion,  obstinately  pursued  by  Allies 
that  had  monarchs  at  home,  had  been  the 
blight  of  the  Allied  cause.  It  was  now  revived 
to  wreck  or  rot  the  last  Allied  chance  in 
Russia. 

49 


50         BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

So  long  as  Lenine  deemed  his  health  to  re- 
quire his  absence  from  the  country  he  contin- 
ued to  direct  through  his  associates  the  course 
of  his  party.  By  the  end  of  October  he  saw 
that  the  time  had  come  to  strike.  A  Con- 
stituent Assembly,  elected  by  the  free  vote  of 
all  the  people  of  Russia,  men  and  women,  would 
soon  meet  in  Petrograd  to  determine  upon  the 
final  form  of  government  and  adopt  its  con- 
stitution. He  knew  well  enough  that  in  that 
convention  his  Idea  would  never  muster  more 
than  a  fraction  of  the  delegates.  Once  let  a 
constitution  be  adopted  and  be  stamped  with 
popular  approval,  the  resulting  government 
could  not,  certainly  in  his  time,  be  overthrown. 
In  effect,  then,  it  was  for  him  now  or  never. 

In  all  that  followed  it  is  to  be  remembered 
that  he  never  had  the  shadow  or  semblance  of 
any  warrant  or  mandate  from  the  people  at 
large.  This  is  the  fact,  no  matter  what  you 
may  have  heard  or  read.  He  had  no  more 
popular  warrant  than  had  Louis  Napoleon, 
whose  methods  he  closely  imitated.  I  have 
heard  eminent  authority  praise  the  one  that 
would  most  certainly  abhor  the  other,  but  con- 
sistency is  a  hob-goblin  haunting  probably  few 
minds  of  this  persuasion.  If  there  be  any  choice 
between  these  two  distinguished  practitioners 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  BALLOT  BOX  51 

of  the  coup  d'etat  the  advantage  is  clearly 
with  Napoleon  the  Little.  He  had  at  least  the 
vote  of  France  back  of  him  to  make  him  presi- 
dent. Lenine  liad  nothing  except  one-sixth  of 
the  National  Council  and  nine-tenths  of  the 
Petrograd  Soviet.  He  had  no  more  and  could 
get  no  more.  His  action  is  defended  on  the 
ground  that  he  wished  to  do  good  to  the 
workers  of  Russia.  The  plea  is  almost  ob- 
scenely trite.  It  has  been  used  by  every  usurper 
from  the  beginning  of  time,  and  most  of  all 
by  that  strange  French-Dutch  adventurer  that 
Lenine  imitated  and  history  scorns. 

Nevertheless,  as  to  all  this  the  record  of 
events  is  the  best  commentary.  Lenine  was 
sure  of  the  garrisons  of  Petrograd  and  Moscow  ; 
under  constant  schooling,  propaganda  and  his 
own  inspiration  they  had  become  about  ninety 
per  cent.  Bolshevic.  He  was  sure  also  of  the 
sympathy  of  the  majority  of  the  citizens  of  both 
places  and  had  therefore  the  needed  back- 
ground of  civilian  support.  Petrograd  was  an 
industrial  center;  its  industrial  development 
had  for  years  been  proceeding  apace.  Moscow 
was  something  of  aji  industrial  center;  so  was 
Kieff.  Outside  of  these  cities,  in  which  either 
a  majority  or  a  large  part  of  the  population  was 
directly  or  indirectly,  by  employment  or  trade 


52         BOLSHEVISM:  AND  THE  UNITED   STATES 

or  economic  sympathy,  connected  with  indus- 
trial production  and  distribution,  Lenine  had  no 
followers.  Indeed,  why  should  he  have  support 
elsewhere?  Nothing  he  had  proposed  meant 
anything  to  the  peasant — not  lands  nor  better 
returns  nor  the  easing  of  toil;  all  the  advan- 
tages were  for  the  industrial  worker. 

Petrograd  city  was  with  him.  At  every 
election  it  had  shown  a  growing  Bolshevic 
majority.  All  the  government  offices  were  in 
Petrograd.  The  government  machinery  there- 
fore stood  unprotected  in  the  midst  of  govern- 
ment enemies.  While  I  was  still  in  Petrograd 
an  effort  was  made  to  shift  the  garrison  and  re- 
place it  with  one  not  hostile  to  the  existing  ad- 
ministration. There  followed  a  plain  intimation 
that  at  any  such  attempt  the  whole  garrison 
would  mutiny,  and  the  government  did  not  dare 
to  risk  the  issue.  A  wise  American  long 
familiar  with  Eussia  strongly  advised  the  gov- 
ernment to  meet  the  situation  by  moving  the 
capital  to  Moscow.  Most  unfortunately  this 
was  rejected  on  the  ground  that  it  would  be 
interpreted  as  a  sign  of  weakness,  and  the 
drama  moved  to  its  foolish  climax. 

Before  daylight  of  November  7  companies  of 
Bolshevist  soldiers  seized  the  bridges,  the  tele- 
phone office,  the  army  headquarters  and  began 


THE   PASSING   OF  THE   BALLOT  BOX  53 

to  occupy  the  streets  of  Petrograd.  They  drew 
up  before  the  two  principal  government  offices, 
the  Marinsky  and  the  Czar's  old  red  Winter 
Palace.  They  broke  into  the  Marinsky  and 
drove  out  the  Council  of  the  Republic,  which 
was  sitting  there.  They  laid  siege  to  the 
Winter  Palace  and  brought  a  small  gunboat 
up  the  Neva  River  to  fire  futile  shots  at  it.  A 
newly  elected  Soviet  was  beginning  its  session 
in  another  part  of  the  city.  A  majority  of 
its  members  was  anti-Bolshevist.  Trotsky 
maneuvered  it  so  that  it  dissolved  itself  and 
faded  out  of  the  way.  The  Winter  Palace  was 
captured.  All  the  ministers  were  there  except 
Kerensky,  who  being  warned  in  time  had  made 
his  escape.  The  rest  were  marched  to  the 
Peter  and  Paul  fortress  and  locked  into  filthy 
dungeons  for  the  crime  of  having  held  office 
under  another  than  Bolshevic  govermnent. 
Some  were  afterward  shot,  some  stayed  there 
for  months  in  daily  expectation  of  being  shot,* 
and  some  eventually  managed  to  get  out  of  the 
country. 

The  moment  the  Winter  Palace  fell  into  their 
hands  the  Bolshevics  proclaimed  the  Dictator- 
ship of  the  Proletariat  and  Lenine  as  its  prime 
minister.  All  opposition  was  beaten  down  with 
♦Vladimir  Bourtzeff,  Les  Deux  FUaux  du  Monde,  page  34. 


54         BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

machine  guns,  armored  cars  and  the  rifles  of 
the  Bolshevist  soldiery.  Men  have  spoken  of 
this  as  ''bloodless  Eevolution "  and  praised  the 
moderation  of  the  Revolutionists.  Unfortun- 
ately it  was  far  from  bloodless.  There  was 
fierce  fighting  before  the  surprised,  badly 
armed  and  badly  commanded  government 
forces  would  yield;  heaps  of  slain  cumbered 
the  square  by  the  Winter  Palace,  the  snow  there 
was  crimson  with  blood  and  more  than  one 
place  along  the  Nevsky  was  heavily  scored  with 
bullets. 

But  the  Bolshevists  won  and  Lenine  im- 
mediately formed  his  cabinet.  The  title  of 
Minister  was  abolished.  Cabinet  officers  were 
now  Commissaries.  Lenine  became  People's 
Commissary  of  Commissaries,  and  Trotsky 
People's  Commissary  for  Foreign  Affairs. 

Kerensky  was  hunted  about  the  country  like 
the  most  desperate  criminal  and  escaped  after 
weeks  of  all  but  incredible  adventures. 

Miss  Bessie  Beatty*  quotes  the  following 
proclamation  announcing  the  new  day: 

*'To  Russian  Citizens: 

**The  power  has  gone  over  to  the  organ  of 
the    Petrograd    Council    of    Workmen's    and 

*The  Red  Heart  of  Rmsia,  page  205. 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  BALLOT  BOX  55 

Soldier's  Deputies,  the  War  Revolutionary 
Committee,  which  is  at  the  head  of  the  Petro- 
grad  proletariat  and  garrison. 

''The  cause  for  which  the  people  strive,  im- 
mediate democratic  peace,  abolition  of  pomi- 
eschik  property*  on  land,  workmen's  control, 
the  creation  of  a  Soviet  government — this 
business  is  done. 

"Long  live  the  Revolution  of  workmen,  sol- 
diers and  peasants! 

*'War  Revolutionary  Committee." 

It  is  to  be  observed  in  this  that  only  the 
Petrograd  Soviet  is  mentioned  and  no  other 
authority  is  cited  for  the  overthrow  of  the 
government  of  all  Russia.  Upon  this  minute 
basis  and  none  other  rested  the  new  Republic 
of  180,000,000  people. 

Four  days  after  the  Bolshevist  power  had 
been  made  secure  in  Petrograd  it  was  made 
equally  secure  by  the  same  methods  in  Moscow 
and  Lenine  and  Trotsky  were  able  to  proceed 
with  their  plans.  Their  first  move  was  to  open 
negotiations  for  what  they  called  peace  but 
meant  in  reality  only  the  withdrawal  of  Russia 
from  the  war.  To  this  goal  they  moved  with- 
out resting  until  they  had  achieved  the  treaty 

♦Agricultural  landowners'  property. 


56         BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

of  Brest-Litovsk,  with  all  the  fruitless  humilia- 
tion it  involved.  Many  things  doubtless  Lenine 
and  Trotsky  knew  well.  They  did  not  know 
what  was  most  important  for  them  to  know, 
which  was  the  reserve  potentiality  of  the 
United  States,  the  will  of  its  people  and  the 
fact  that  the  Germany  to  which  they  abjectly 
surrendered  was  already  no  more  than  a  hollow 
shell. 

Meantime,  there  appeared  a  rather  indefinite 
plan  for  the  division  of  authority  and  the  ad- 
ministration of  public  business.  All  power 
having  once  been  formally  declared  to  lie  in  the 
National  Soviet  that  body  was  largely  forgot- 
ten; which  was  but  natural,  since  it  had  no 
particular  function  to  perform.  There  was  a 
Council  of  People's  Commissaries,  supposed  to 
have  the  purposes  of  a  cabinet,  and  there  was 
a  Central  Executive  Committee  that  seemed  of 
indefinite  attributes;  but  the  real  governing 
power  soon  appeared  in  an  Extraordinary  Com- 
mittee to  Combat  the  Counter-Revolution, 
which  took  the  decrees  of  Lenine,  represented 
them  to  be  vital  to  the  life  of  the  Revolution 
and  as  such  justifying  any  means  for  their 
enforcement  and  with  armed  soldiery  carried 
them  out.  From  this  the  step  was  easy  to 
a  condition  in  which  the  Extraordinary  Com- 


THE   PASSING   OF   THE   BALLOT   BOX  57 

mittee  saw  the  Revolution  threatened  by  any 
man,  men,  party,  newspaper,  corporation,  fac- 
tory or  other  agency  it  did  not  like  and  thus 
made  use  in  any  mid  way  it  might  please  of 
the  unlimited  and  unscrutinized  power  with 
which  it  was  clothed.  The  Dictatorship  of  the 
Proletariat  was  complete. 

It  had  not  been  launched  without  a  desper- 
ate struggle  nor  without  still  other  scenes 
incompatible  with  the  orderly  and  benevolent 
reformation  it  has  been  pictured. 

When  soon  after  the  beginning  of  the  war 
the  Czar  had  proclaimed  prohibition,  the 
hotels,  fashionable  restaurants  and  many  of  the 
wealthy  residents  secreted  in  cellars  great 
stores  of  various  beverages  that  both  cheer 
and  inebriate.  This  fact  was  suspected  by  the 
populace  but  the  location  of  the  caches  was 
not  generally  known.  In  the  first  days  after 
the  proclamation  of  the  Great  Idea  thirsty 
crowds,  Eed  Guardsmen  and  others,  roamed  the 
streets  looking  for  handy  wine  cellars.  The 
practice  had  already  begun  of  evicting  the 
well-to-do  from  their  homes  and  turning  these 
over  to  the  workers  or  those  that  pretended  to 
be  of  that  order.  When  the  new  tenants  dis- 
covered a  wine  cellar  on  the  premises  they  were 
unable  to  conceal  the  joyous  fact.    The  result 


58         BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

was  that  a  crowd  gathered,  broke  its  way  to  the 
bottles  and  speedily  becoming  drunk  attracted 
another  crowd  and  more  drunl^enness.  I  think 
it  a  fact  in  nature  that  the  average  Russian 
ought  never  to  drink  anything  that  has  alcohol 
in  it;  he  has  good  brains  for  other  things  but 
very  poor  for  drinking.  The  soldiers  that  went 
upon  these  debauches  seemed  transformed  into 
raging  wild  beasts.  They  so  threatened  the 
whole  city  that  for  some  hours  the  life  of 
Lenine's  idea  seemed  likely  to  perish  at  its  be- 
ginning, drowned  in  butts  of  wine. 

When  the  People's  Commissary  for  War 
heard  of  what  was  going  on  he  sent  other 
troops  to  arrest  the  drunkards.  When  these 
Red  Guards  would  appear  upon  the  scene  they 
would  drive  off  the  revelers,  often  after  a  battle 
in  which  some  would  be  shot,  and  then  proceed 
to  attack  what  was  left  of  the  refreshments. 
This  in  turn  would  bring  down  a  new  detach- 
ment of  the  Red  Guards  who  would  give  battle 
to  the  first,  drive  them  off  and  betake  them- 
selves to  the  winebags.  For  these  reasons  there 
were  many  neighborhoods  that  for  days  together 
did  not  lack  excitement;  between  the  howling 
drunkards  and  the  Guards  overliberal  with 
their  cold  lead  something  was  going  on  every 
hour  of  the  day  and  night.    At  one  such  center 


THE   PASSING   OF  THE   BALLOT   BOX  59 

of  interest  four  successive  detachments  of 
troops  having  driven  away  the  preceding  ar- 
rivals only  to  fall  themselves  victims  to  the 
Rum  Fiend,  the  directing  mind,  whoever  it 
was,  had  a  glimmer  of  sense  and  called  out 
the  firemen.  These  turned  the  hose  upon  the 
bibulous  and  dispersed  them.  The  dramatic 
unities  demand  that  the  incident  should  close 
with  the  intoxication  of  the  firemen,  but  it 
appears  that  before  long  the  wine  was  all  gone. 
Perhaps,  however,  report  does  injustice  to  their 
virtue.  It  is  to  be  observed  that  at  least  in  some 
places  the  firemen  poured  wine  into  the  streets. 
No  one  can  deny  that  in  still  other  respects 
what  had  happened  resembled  Mexico.  I  re- 
vert once  more  to  the  fact  that  a  minority  had 
by  force  of  arms  and  brute  strength  snatched 
the  lever  from  the  hands  of  the  majority.  The 
Bolshevics  were  a  minority  in  the  nation,  in 
the  last  National  Soviet  (which  they  had  been 
compelled  to  dissolve),  and  in  the  Soviet's  Cen- 
tral Executive  Committee,  which,  when  the 
parent  body  was  not  in  session,  was  the  source 
of  national  authority.  They  had  a  majority  in 
the  local  Soviet  of  Petrograd,  a  great  and 
whole-hearted  majority.  But  the  local  Soviet 
of  Petrograd  was  nothing  more  than  a  city 
council  and  its  authority  in  the  nation  was  like 


60         BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

that  of  the  New  York  Board  of  Aldermen.  The 
false  position  in  which  he  stood  now  led  Lenine 
upon  three  acts  that  vitiated  any  pretense  of 
a  purpose  to  rule  by  moral  right  or  principle. 
He  ordered  all  the  people  except  the  Eed 
Guards  and  the  known  Bolshevics  to  be  dis- 
armed, disbanding  all  the  army  except  the 
Red  Guards;  he  arranged  a  preference  in  the 
distributing  of  food  for  his  political  supporters ; 
and  he  arranged  to  disperse  the  Constituent 
Assembly,  the  only  voice  of  the  Russian  people. 
It  is  here  that  his  supporters  stumble  and 
eulogy  goes  dumb.  Let  us  suppose  his  plan 
to  have  all  the  merits  they  think  they  see  in 
it;  let  us  suppose  the  supremacy  of  the  minority 
to  be  the  highest  wisdom,  and  a  dictatorship 
the  best  attainable  form  of  government.  Let 
us  admit  everything  that  has  been  said  of  the 
purity  and  unselfishness  of  Lenine 's  motives. 
The  better  his  case  the  stronger  the  reason  why 
he  should  have  awaited  the  judgment  of  the 
Constituent  Assembly,  representing  the  Rus- 
sian people.  If  his  plan  was  of  such  supernal 
importance  to  mankind  he  could  have  no  diffi- 
culty in  persuading  a  majority  of  the  Assembly 
of  that  fact.  It  would  then  have  been  adopted 
without  trouble  and  without  bloodshed.  Just, 
righteous  and  worthy  causes  never  need  to  be 


THE  PASSING   OF  THE  BALLOT  BOX  61 

imposed  with  guns  upon  deliberating  men. 
Nothing  has  need  of  fraud  except  another 
fraud. 

The  Constituent  Assembly  met  on  January 
18,  1918.  It  had  been  scheduled  for  an  earlier 
date  but  postponed  because  Lenine  had  seized 
some  of  its  most  important  members  and  thrust 
them  in  jail.  Some  light  upon  his  methods 
is  afforded  by  the  fact  that  before  his  accession 
to  power  he  and  his  followers  were  wont  bit- 
terly to  assail  the  existing  government  for  not 
calling  the  very  Constituent  Assembly  that  once 
in  power  he  most  desired  to  suppress.*  Even 
more  subtly  illuminating  is  the  fact  that  on 
January  16,  two  days  before  the  Assembly  was 
to  convene,  he  caused  to  be  scattered  through 
Petrograd  a  proclamation  of  the  most  alarming 
character,  announcing  to  the  citizens  that  the 
meeting  of  the  Assembly  was  to  be  the  signal 
for  the  desperate  uprising  of  the  worst  reac- 


*  Bourtzeff,  Lcs  Deux  Fliaux  du  Monde,  page  43. 

In  Lenine's  The  Lessons  of  the  Revolution,  at  page  5, 
occurs  this  significant  passage:  "Peasants  are  being  led  by 
the  nose  [September,  1917]  being  told  to  wait  for  the  Ck)n- 
stituent  Assembly.  Yet  the  calling  of  this  assembly  the 
capitalists  are  delaying.  Now  when  the  call,  under  the 
influence  of  the  demands  of  the  Bolshevists,  is  fixed  for 
September  30,  [1917]  the  capitalists  scream  that  that  is 
impossible." 


62         BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

tionary  forces  in  Russia  and  an  attempt  to 
bring  back  the  old  regime.  '^Citizens!  The 
Revolution  is  in  danger!  Be  on  your  guard!" 
At  that  old  cry  most  Russians  were  supposed 
to  lose  reason  and  sense  and  to  be  ready  to 
shoot  down  their  own  mothers.  In  the  same 
proclamation  certain  zones  of  the  city  were 
bounded  in  which  no  demonstration  nor  parades 
would  be  allowed.  As  this  device  was  new  in 
Petrograd's  experience  and  as  the  forbidden 
zones  were  hard  to  distinguish  and  remember, 
the  incident  was  exceedingly  sinister.  It 
framed  the  whole  situation  for  trouble. 

A  parade  had  already  been  arranged  in  honor 
of  the  meeting  of  the  Assembly.  It  stepped 
over  the  line  into  one  of  the  forbidden  zones. 
The  Red  Guards  opened  fire  with  machine  guns 
and  killed  fifteen  of  the  paraders  and  wounded 
scores.  The  survivors  fled  in  terror.  Then  the 
Assembly  opened — with  jumping  nerves.  A  test 
vote  showed  the  Bolshevics  in  a  hopeless 
minority.  They  stormed  out  of  the  building. 
The  rest  remained  and  tried  to  do  business 
until  a  guard  of  sailors  from  Kronstadt  put 
them  into  the  street.  The  terrible  uprising  of 
reactionary  forces  in  the  cause  of  the  counter- 
revolution never  materialized.  With  such 
tricks  was  the  Great  Idea  launched.    Nothing 


THE   PASSING   OF  THE   BALLOT  BOX  63 

better  illustrates  the  truth  that  its  support  re- 
quires a  peculiar  order  of  mind  than  the  in- 
genuity with  which  these  ugly  facts  are  side- 
stepped in  this  country.  The  sailors  showing 
into  the  streets  the  elected  representatives  of 
the  people  of  Russia  might  have  paraphrased 
another  emissary  of  the  same  idea  on  a  previous 
and  historic  occasion.  "Democracy  doesn't  go 
here!"  would  have  been  a  fitting  word  in  their 
lips.  From  that  time  on  there  was  no  de- 
mocracy in  Russia. 

Lenine  had  won  to  his  goal:  there  was  no 
rule  of  the  ballot  box  in  his  Utopia.  The  All- 
Russia  Soviet  or  National  Council  continued  to 
be  the  nominal  legislative  body  of  the  coun- 
try but  he  took  such  measures  as  insured 
a  Soviet  exactly  according  to  his  will,  a  Soviet 
of  the  familiar  rubber-stamp  kind.  A  new 
Soviet  was  about  to  be  elected;  when  chosen 
according  to  his  approved  formula,  of  which  I 
am  to  speak  hereafter,  there  was  no  room  for 
doubt  as  to  its  excellence  in  the  line  he  desired. 

The  government  the  Bolshevics  had  in  this 
manner  overthrown  was  a  Socialistic  govern- 
ment. Kerensky  was  an  ardent  Socialist  of 
many  years'  adherence  to  the  faith;  so  were 
nearly  all  of  his  colleagues.  The  principles 
upon  which  their  government  was  promulgated 


64         BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

were  essentially  Socialistic  principles.  The 
program  they  had  adopted  was  a  Socialist 
program.  The  flag  they  flew  was  a  Socialist 
flag.  The  party  to  which  most  of  them  be- 
longed was  an  old-time  Socialist  party.  In  the 
beginning  the  Bolshevics  also  had  professed 
Socialism.  When  they  had  attacked  and  de- 
feated the  existing  Socialist  government  they 
abandoned  Socialism,  adopted  the  philosophy 
of  Communism  and  called  themselves  hence- 
forward the  Communist  party  of  Russia. 

Communism,  that  is  to  say,  carefully  denuded 
of  democracy. 

On  the  principles  of  Communism  they  now 
proceeded  to  declare  that  important  businesses 
should  become  at  once  the  property  of  the  gov- 
ernment; all  banks,  many  factories,  some  kinds 
of  wholesale  and  retail  concerns.  Armed 
guards  marched  into  the  banks  and  seized 
them;  agents  of  the  Dictatorship  informed  the 
owners  of  factories  that  henceforth  such  in- 
stitutions would  be  operated  by  and  for  the 
Soviet  Republic.  At  the  same  time  dwellers  in 
large  and  comfortable  houses  were  forcibly 
evicted,  and  the  families  of  loyal  Bolshevics  or 
faithful  factory  workers  installed  in  their 
stead. 

About  eighty  per  cent,  of  the  population  of 


THE   PASSING  OF  THE   BALLOT  BOX  65 

Russia  was  peasant.  The  avowed  beneficiaries 
of  the  new  order  were  factory  workers  and  the 
like.  It  was  for  their  sake  that  the  changes 
were  made  as  it  was  in  their  name  that  the 
Socialist  government  had  been  battered  down. 
Meantime,  less  than  one-sixth*  of  the  popu- 
lation was  nominally  supreme  over  the  other 
five-sixths  in  a  country  where  nine  or  ten 
months  before  autocracy  had  been  banished, 
forever,  men  thought,  and  democracy  had  been 
hailed  in  its  most  dazzling  and  hopeful  triumph. 
And  behind  the  one-sixth  sat  one  man  whose 
mind  directed  the  whole.  Modern  history  can 
show  nothing  like  this. 


*  TMs  is  to  take  as  correct  the  highest  estimate  of  Bol- 
shevic  strength  in  the  days  of  the  movement's  greatest 
prosperity,  which  was  after  Ivenine's  appeal  to  the  cupidity 
of  the  peasants.  If  the  total  of  his  adherents  was  ever 
anything  like  one-sixth  of  the  population,  certainly  the 
period  was  short.  It  is  likely  that  on  January  23.  1919, 
when  he  issued  his  call  for  the  Communist  International,  he 
had  not  the  voices  of  one-twelfth  of  the  people. 


CHAPTER  IV 

WHAT  IS  BOLSHEVISM? 

One  feature  of  Lenine's  triumph  in  Novem- 
ber, 1917,  that  was  always  mysterious  to  Ameri- 
cans, was  the  ease  with  which  it  was  accom- 
plished. To  them  it  seemed  as  if  on  one  day  the 
Provisional  Government  was  proceeding  along 
sure  lines  to  the  solution  of  Russia's  difficulties 
and  the  next  as  if  the  people  on  a  whim  had 
allowed  one  man  with  a  new,  untried  and  ap- 
parently fantastic  scheme  of  society  to  push 
over  the  whole  structure  of  sanity. 

This  is  not  fair  because  although  Lenine 
never  had  a  majority  of  the  people  with  him, 
nor  anything  like  a  majority,  he  was  loyally 
supported  and  followed  by  a  very  considerable, 
well-disciplined  and  resolute  body,  whom  he 
had  drawn  to  him  by  the  strength  of  his  argu- 
ments and  the  power  of  his  magnetism. 

We  are  to  remember  that  a  great  part  of  the 
population  had  been  marvelously  exalted  by 
the  Revolution.    Do  you  imagine  that  in  all  the 

66 


WHAT   IS   BOLSHEVISM?  67 

years  when  Kussia  was  a  reproach  to  the  world 
and  a  by-word  among  the  nations  a  singularly 
sensitive  and  impressionable  people  had  failed 
to  feel  the  sting  thereof?  And  now  the  old 
shame  was  gone  forever,  and  Russia  stood  forth 
splendid  in  the  eyes  of  all  mankind  and  destined 
to  lead  other  democracies  to  a  new  order  of 
life.  About  all  such  things  some  equilibria  ap- 
pear; by  so  much  as  they  had  been  humiliated 
and  depressed  they  should  now  be  uplifted. 
They  saw  a  world  remade  for  man,  and  Russia 
foremost  in  it.  They  saw  the  old  darkness  of 
injustice  and  hatred  disappearing  and  Russia 
bearing  the  light.  No  estimate  of  the  im- 
portance to  the  world  of  Russia's  emancipation 
seemed  to  them  extravagant;  in  all  sincerity 
they  believed  that  no  event  in  history  compared 
with  this.  They  were  prepared  for  any  con- 
sequences of  splendor  and  freedom;  they  saw 
the  New  Day  ushered  upon  earth,  the  day  of 
universal  brotherhood,  peace,  good  will,  fel- 
lowship; some  new  and  better  system  of  so- 
ciety was  to  be  brought  in  and  established 
while  bands  played  The  Marseillaise.  All  the 
generosity  of  a  naturally  fine  people  rose  and 
exulted;  they  wanted  everybody  else  to  be  as 
happy  as  they  were. 

Millions  that  felt  this  infectious  and  won- 


68         BOLSHEVISM   AIv'D   THE    UNITED   STATES 

derful  Sursum  Corda  had  only  the  vaguest  idea 
or  none  at  all  as  to  the  shape  the  new  dispen- 
sation would  have.  For  generations  the  policy 
of  the  masters  of  the  country  had  been  to  keep 
the  common  people  in  dense  ignorance  lest  by 
any  chance  the  common  people  should  learn 
enough  to  revolt  and  thus  shake  the  masters 
out  of  their  comfortable  seats.  Upon  this  lump 
of  ignorance  in  some  places  and  upon  naive  in- 
experience in  others  came  now  Lenine  preach- 
ing his  Great  Idea  as  the  expected  gospel  of 
redemption,  not  alone  for  Russia;  for  all  the 
human  race.  It  is  no  wonder  that  imagina- 
tions already  stirred  by  the  sudden  sun-burst 
of  freedom  should  take  fire  at  his  proposals. 
Like  freedom  now  for  other  countries,  a  re- 
versal of  the  ancient  empire  of  wrong,  the  noble- 
man and  the  capitalist  to  the  hovel,  the  worker 
and  the  producer  to  the  palace— Land,  Peace, 
Liberty !  To  some  souls  this  seemed  the  summit 
of  wholesome  Revolutionary  doctrine  and 
Nicolai  Lenine  its  prophet. 

There  was  also  the  other  fact  that  essentially 
Russia  was  sick  and  tired  of  a  war  she  never 
understood  and  never  had  interest  in.  Her  sons 
had  been  driven  like  cattle  by  the  old  ruling 
class  into  such  human  slaughter  as  never  had 
been  known.    Millions  of  households  had  been 


WHAT   IS   BOLSHEVISM?  69 

darkened;  the  towns  and  villages  abounded 
with  widows  and  orphans,  maimed  men  and 
blinded.  Along  came  Lenine  and  promised 
peace;  peace  at  once  for  Russia,  beaten,  shat- 
tered Russia,  and  peace  for  all  the  other  fight- 
ing countries.  For  it  should  not  be  overlooked 
that  Russia  had  been  beaten  to  a  pulp.  Her 
soldiers,  second  to  none  in  bravery,  had  been 
badly  equipped  or  not  equipped  at  all,  and 
badly  led.  William  G.  Shepherd,  who  was  one 
of  the  wisest  of  the  observers  of  Russia  in  this 
period,  wrote  that  she  was  like  a  boy  that  at 
half  past  five  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  gets  into 
a  fight  with  another  boy  much  stronger,  and 
when  he  finds  that  he  is  beaten  suddenly  re- 
members that  at  six  he  must  go  for  the  cows 
and  thinks  he  hears  his  mother  calling.  It  was 
a  good  figure  of  speech:  the  thought  of  fight 
had  gone  out  of  the  typical  Russian  and  left 
him  limp  and  gasping. 

Take  note,  too,  of  this  physical  condition  fall- 
ing in  aptly  with  the  new  propaganda,  that  for 
many  months  great  populations  had  been 
struggling  with  want  and  misery  always  grow- 
ing worse.  Even  in  the  Czar's  time  they  had 
drifted  within  view  of  starvation;  week  by 
week  they  now  approached  it.  Millions  of 
people  in  Petrograd,  Moscow,  Kieff  had  been 


70         BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UniteD   STATES 

for  three  years  undernourished  and  for  what 
little  food  they  had  been  able  to  win  had  un- 
dergone hardships  such  as  no  people  with  any 
power  of  protest  could  be  expected  to  endure. 
For  nearly  everything  they  ate  or  wore  they 
must  stand  in  line,  sometimes  for  hours  in  snow 
and  ice,  to  receive  at  last  but  a  pittance  of  the 
thing  they  needed. 

Yet  they  knew  all  the  time  that  there  was 
food  enough  in  the  country — enough  with  over- 
measure.  They  had  some  notion,  perhaps  often 
misty,  that  for  all  these  sufferings  the  men  in 
charge  of  the  government  were  responsible; 
there  was  even  some  perception  that  the  source 
of  the  trouble  was  faulty  distribution.  The 
truth  is  that  for  years  before  the  great  war, 
Russia's  economic  organization  had  been  slowly 
cracking.  We  shall  see  how  it  was  with  agri- 
cultural production,  the  life  of  eighty  per  cent, 
of  the  people;  how  the  old  land  system  had 
placed  around  the  nation's  throat  a  noose  that 
drew  constantly  tighter.  Added  to  this  calam- 
ity was  the  decline  of  the  railroad  system 
under  the  ceaseless  pilfering  and  mismanage- 
ment of  the  most  corrupt  government  ever  seen 
in  the  world.  There  had  never  been  anything 
like  enough  railroad  line  in  Russia;  much  of 
what    existed    was    becoming    crippled.      The 


WHAT  IS   BOLSHEVISM?  71 

Provisional  Government  under  Luvoff  and 
Kerensky  recognized  these  menaces  and 
planned  to  deal  with  them,  but  while  it  planned 
the  food  grew  scarcer  and  the  bread  lines 
longer.  In  the  minds  of  most  persons  it  was 
the  war  that  made  all  the  trouble;  the  Czar's 
war  in  which  they  had  no  interest,  the  Czar's 
war  that  had  drenched  the  land  in  tears.  They 
wanted  the  Provisional  Government  to  make 
peace.  It  insisted  upon  the  fighting  of  which 
so  many  were  sick.  Along  came  Lenine  with 
his  promise  of  Peace,  Land,  Liberty,  as  the  first 
fruits  of  the  Great  Idea.  Many  persons  hailed 
it  as  the  sign  of  a  new  ^Moses  in  the  wilderness, 
and  the  only  wonder  is  that  the  number  was  not 
greater.  Surely  this  people  must  have  reserve 
powers  of  reflective  good  sense,  let  calumny  say 
of  them  what  it  will! 

Also,  we  ought  not  to  leave  this  subject  with- 
out dwelling  once  more  on  that  stern  law  of 
historic  justice  and  retribution  that  seemed  so 
strong  a  factor  in  the  trouble  that  followed. 
Perhaps  all  the  other  causes  were  incidental; 
perhaps  this  alone  would  have  produced  some 
upheaval.  Every  oppression  must  bear  its 
crop  of  violence  and  sorrow:  blood  will  have 
blood.  Wrongs  do  not  come  into  the  world  of 
themselves;   they   are   the   products   of   other 


72         BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

wrongs.  Eetribution  treads  after  tyranny,  grim, 
inevitable,  relentless.  If  not  in  one  generation, 
then  in  the  next  or  the  next,  it  will  overtake 
its  quarry.  There  seems  to  be  no  such  thing  as  a 
social  crime  that  goes  unpunished;  the  gentle- 
men that  commit  it  may  die  in  their  beds  full 
of  bread,  wine  and  satisfaction  with  them- 
selves, but  the  grinding  of  retribution  will  take 
it  out  of  their  grandchildren  or  their  grand- 
children's grandchildren.  The  rise  of  man  has 
been  one  long  story  of  hideous  misuse  of  power 
followed  by  revolt,  and  the  violence  of  the  re- 
volt has  always  been  attuned  to  the  violence 
of  the  wrong  against  which  it  reacted. 

Under  the  old  system,  Russia  had  been  the 
most  horrible  region  on  earth.  For  all  except  an 
inconsiderable  fractio,n  of  its  inhabitants,  life 
had  been  but  a  span  of  suffering,  acute  in  those 
that  had  been  detected  in  revolt,  chronic  in  the 
rest.  The  land  lay  in  the  cold  unmoving 
shadow  of  fear.  For  the  most  part  people  were 
born  into  fear,  reared  with  fear,  in  all  their 
lives  drew  not  one  breath  unchoked  with  fear. 
A  monstrous  tyranny,  sharpened  to  an  ab- 
normal delight  in  cruelty  for  cruelty's  own 
sake,  conducted  by  a  family  afflicted  with 
hereditary  madness,  had  held  its  sway  through 
the  sole  means  of  terror  and  slaughter.     Its 


WHAT   IS   BOLSHEVISM?  73 

blood-stained  yoke  rested  upon  the  necks  of 
180,000,000  people.  For  most  of  these,  joy  was 
assassinated  and  light  denied.  There  is  no 
other  crime  in  history  comparable  to  this.  If 
it  could  pass  without  retributive  outbreaks 
nature  would  have  to  reverse  itself. 

Moreover,  people  that  all  their  lives  have 
been  inured  to  fearful  sights  and  grown  callous 
to  suffering  could  not  be  expected  to  have  deli- 
cate scruples  about  the  disposal  of  such  enemies 
as  fell  into  their  hands.  Their  most  impressive 
experience  with  government  had  revealed  to 
them  a  great,  soulless,  onward  crashing  ma- 
chine before  which  human  bodies  toppled  like 
reeds  and  were  to  be  as  little  considered. 
Along  came  Lenine  with  his  Dictatorship  of 
the  Proletariat.  With  dictators  they  had  been 
well  acquainted  all  their  lives.  The  new  order 
proposed  that  the  tables  should  be  turned,  that 
the  oppressed  should  visit  upon  their  former 
masters  something  of  the  pain  and  sorrow  the 
poor  and  the  weak  had  previously  known.  The 
wonder  is  that  more  Russians  did  not  face 
about  to  follow  the  pied  pipers  that  came  with 
such  a  song. 

The  truth  is  we  have  been  overready  with 
our  acrid  criticism  of  Russia  and  strangely 
averse  to  consider  the  conditions  that  have  pro- 


74         BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

duced  these  results.  Little  has  happened  there 
since  March,  1917,  that  was  not  a  direct  and 
natural  result  of  well-known  causes.  It  was 
not  because  the  lowly  Russians  were  so  differ- 
ent from  other  peoples  that  they  embraced 
Bolshevism  but  because  they  were  like  other 
peoples ! 

Consider  what,  upon  a  fairly  sensitive  mind, 
must  be  the  effect  of  the  environment  into 
which  these  people  were  bom.  In  spite  of  itself 
such  a  mind  must  be  forced  to  something  ab- 
normal; unless  it  were  become  merely  brutish 
and  sodden  it  would  imbibe  and  absorb  wild 
yearnings  for  revenge,  wild  visions  of  some 
world  where  there  were  no  such  horrors,  where 
chains  should  be  broken  and  the  wronged 
should  in  their  turn  press  the  full  draught  of 
hatred  to  the  lips  that  now  commanded  it  for 
others.  Perverted  plantings,  perverted  fruit- 
age; it  is  the  changeless  law.  In  one  case 
beginning  with  a  mind  impressionable,  strong 
and  fine,  years  of  brooding  upon  the  miseries 
of  Russia  in  chains  had  made  it  cold,  calcu- 
lating, steady,  ruthless,  impenetrable,  a  figure 
of  fate,  clear  sighted  to  its  own  strange  goal, 
not  to  be  turned  aside,  maybe  pushed  on  by 
the  irresistible  force  it  had  itself  created;  and 
we  have  Lenine.    In  thousands  of  other  minds 


WHAT  IS   BOLSHEVISM?  75 

less  gifted  the  product  was  a  passion  for  a 
system  wherein  such  tilings  should  be  impos- 
sible, and  to  these  Lenine  was  a  soul  sent  for 
their  leadership. 

And  exactly  what  was  this  promised  land 
toward  which  he  led  them?     How  would  he 
or  they  define  the  Dictatorship  of  the  Prole- 
tariat he  was  so  sure  would  redeem  Eussia  and 
the  world  and  bring  comfort  in  the  place  of 
misery,  a  comfort  flavored,  as  we  have  seen, 
with   a   certain  pungency  of  revenge?     It   is 
difficult  to  say  in  plain  and  understandable 
terms.     This  is  one  of  the  strangest  features 
of  the  whole  strange  story.     Say  that  a  man 
thirsted  after  exact  knowledge  of  the  theory, 
scope  and  working  plans  of  Bolshevism,  he 
would  find  it  hard  to  come  by  the  lore  of  his 
desire.     Here   is   Leon   Trotsky's   book,   The 
Bolshevihi    and     World    Peace.      Admirably 
written  in  limpid,  powerful  English,  so  that 
you  wonder  at  the  man,  you  might  almost  say 
that  it  deals  with  everything  else  except  the 
Bolshevics.    You  read  with  pleasure  the  clever, 
sub-acid  analyses  of  the  Balkan  question,  of 
tne  futile  arguments  for  defensive  warfare,  of 
Socialist  politics,  of  the  collapse  of  the  Inter- 
national.   It  is  all  most  interesting;  but  what 
has  it  to  do  with  Bolshevism?     At  the  end  I 


76         BOLSHEVISM  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES 

find  this  paragraph  which  alone  has  any  refer- 
ence to  the  question  on  which  the  world  wishes 
enlightenment : 

*'The  Revolutionary  epoch  will  create  new 
forms  of  organization  out  of  the  inexhaustible 
resources  of  proletarian  Socialism,  new  forms 
that  will  be  equal  to  the  greatness  of  the  new 
tasks.  To  this  world  we  will  apply  ourselves 
at  once,  amid  the  mad  roaring  of  machine  guns, 
the  crashing  of  cathedrals,  and  the  patriotic 
howling  of  the  capitalist  jackals.  We  will 
keep  our  minds  clear  amid  this  hellish  death 
music,  our  undimmed  vision.  We  feel  ourselves 
to  be  the  only  creative  force  of  the  future. 
Already  there  are  many  of  us,  more  than  it 
may  seem.  To-morrow  there  will  be  more  of 
us  than  to-day.  And  the  day  after  to-morrow, 
millions  will  rise  up  under  our  banner,  millions 
who,  even  now,  sixty-seven  years  after  the 
Communist  Manifesto,  have  nothing  to  lose  but 
their  chains." 

No  doubt  this  is  to  be  admired  as  rhetoric 
and  noted  as  prophecy,  but  it  leaves  the  world 
cold  so  far  as  the  actual  proposals  of  Bol- 
shevism are  concerned.  Very  likely  there  are 
to  be  new  forms  of  organization,  as  this  para- 


WHAT   IS   BOLSHEVISM?  77 

graph  suggests,  but  one  would  like  to  know 
what  they  are  to  be;  that  is,  apf)roximately,  if 
not  absolutely. 

Research  in  other  literature  of  the  New  Day 
is  not  more  satisfying.  The  small  pamphlet 
by  Lenine  contains  able  arguments  against 
the  existing  system  and  in  favor  of  a  change, 
but  throws  no  light  on  the  operations  of 
society  in  the  new  political  state  he  pro- 
poses. Doubtless  he  has  been  too  busy  to 
continue  his  labors  with  the  pen  or  we  might 
have  expected  from  him  something  perma- 
nently enlightening.  Miss  Louise  Bryant  has 
written  an  excellent  book,  Six  Red  Months 
in  Russia,  a  frank  and  powerful  defense  of 
the  beginning  of  the  Bolshevic  regime,  but  un- 
fortunately omitting  to  say  anything  of  its 
projects.  She  carries  the  Bolshevic  history  to 
February  1,  1918,  but  of  course  much  of  it  has 
been  made  since  then  and  perhaps  not  always 
exactly  as  she  had  expected.  I  find  a  most 
clever  and  interesting  pamphlet  by  Albert  Rhys 
Williams,  The  Bolsheviks  and  the  Soviets, 
composed  of  arguments  in  the  form  of  question! 
and  answer  for  the  Lenine  style  of  government 
as  practised  in  Russia.  It  contains  a  great  deal 
of  new,  not  to  say  startling,  information  on 
many  matters,  but  it  does  not  tell  anything 


78         BOLSHEVISM  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES 

about  the  Bolshevic  conception  of  society  nor 
about  the  chart  by  which  the  Bolshevics  would 
steer  if  they  had  command  of  the  world  ship. 
It  may  be  useful  here,  as  showing  what  I  mean, 
to  reproduce  one  of  Mr.  Williams 's  illuminating 
pages: 

**What  are  some  of  the  things  which  the 
Soviet  government  has  accomplished? 

*' First. — It  nationalized  all  the  national  re- 
sources, the  forests,  mines,  waterways,  etc. 

*  *  Second. — It  gave  all  the  land  to  the  peasants. 
Each  family  was  given  as  much  land  as  it  could 
work.  This  has  made  the  peasants  very  happy 
and  glad  to  support  the  Soviet. 

*  *  Third. — It  organized  a  great  Red  Army. 

*' Fourth. — *It  swept  the  Secret  Treaties  into 
the  ash  barrel  of  history.' 

*' Fifth.— It  stirred  up  the  great  Revolution  in 
Germany  and  pulled  the  Kaiser  from  liis  throne. 

**  Sixth. — It  gave  the  factories,  shops  and 
mines  to  the  workers.  Some  of  them  were 
owned  by  the  State;  others  came  directly  under 
workmen's  control.  .  .  . 

"What  else  has  the  Soviet  done  for  which 
all  America  should  be  grateful? 

' '  It  has  saved  hundred  of  thousands  of  Ameri- 
can lives,  some  say  500,000 ;  others  say  more. 


WHAT   IS   BOLSHEVISM?  79 

**Why  do  the  Russian  people  continue  to 
keep  the  Bolshevics  in  office! 

**(a)  Because  they  have  proved  able  and 
good  leaders  who  did  what  the  people  wanted. 
{b)  Because  most  of  the  Bolshevic  leaders 
came  out  of  the  ranks  of  the  people  them- 
selves and  understand  the  people's  ideas 
and  speak  the  people's  language,  (c)  Because 
the  capitalists  have  called  them  'murderers 
and  German  agents.'  The  people  know  that 
these  are  lies  and  that  the  Bolshevic  leaders  are 
the  most  honest  and  most  sacrificing  men  in 
the  world." 

One  of  the  best  of  the  books  on  Bolshevism 
is  Miss  Bessie  Beatty's  The  Red  Heart  of 
Russia.  It  is  brilliantly  written;  you  hang 
with  fascinated  interest  upon  its  pages.  Vivid 
description  follows  vivid  description;  you  feel 
as  you  read  as  if  you  were  in  the  scene  taking 
part  in  the  fighting.  You  gather  from  it  that 
the  Bolshevics  are  great,  splendid,  kind,  gen- 
erous, chivalric  fellows,  brave  as  lions  and  full 
of  the  noblest  fervor.  If  they  have  a  fault  it 
is  perhaps  that  they  carry  chivalry  to  excess. 
You  learn  this  with  thoughtful  gratitude. 
But  you  do  not  learn  what  they  are  fighting 
for.     Perhaps  that  is  not  necessary.     Perhaps 


80         BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

all  that  is  necessary  is  that  we  should  fight, 
fight  gloriously,  fight  a  great  deal.  Never- 
theless, plain  old-fashioned  people  that  have 
not  been  electrified  by  sacrificial  Bolshevism, 
might  not  be  satisfied  with  this.  If  they  are 
to  start  out  to  kill  everybody  they  might  pos- 
sibly wish  to  know  what  the  killing  was  to 
be  for,  and  from  all  the  Bolshevic  writings  I 
have  been  able  to  find  they  would  assuredly 
come   away   with   that   question  unanswered. 

Others  more  prosaic  but  not  less  important 
fail  equally  to  stir  a  responsive  chord  in  the 
Bolshevic  bosom.  For  instance,  under  the  Dic- 
tatorship of  the  Proletariat  how  will  men, 
women  and  children  get  daily  bread?  I  admit 
that  this  question  may  savor  of  the  detestable 
bourgeoisie  and  therefore  on  principle  deserve 
nothing  but  contempt.  But  as  most  persons 
have  an  aversion  to  starving  I  am  forced  to  re- 
gard it  as  pertinent  and  so  far  I  have  never 
been  able  to  discover  any  other  answer  to  it 
than  the  appalling  death  lists  of  Petrograd  and 
Moscow. 

I  mean  that  we  have  now  a  certain  system 
by  which  the  essentials  of  life  are  produced  by 
and  for  and  distributed  among  the  inhabitants 
of  earth.  No  doubt  it  is  a  bad  system;  never- 
theless,   it    does    function,    however    poorly. 


WHAT   13   BOLSHEVISM?  81 

What  system  did  Bolslievism  propose?  How, 
under  Bolshevism,  would  man's  bread  and  meat 
be  produced  and  brought  to  him?  Sweeping 
changes  it  purposed  in  the  existing  arrange- 
ments; they  were  all  of  the  nature  of  destruc- 
tion. Yet  the  fact  remained  that  men  must 
continue  to  live  by  an  interchange  of  products, 
often  at  a  great  distance,  and  how  that  was 
to  be  accomplished  after  the  existing  structure 
should  have  been  torn  down  there  was  nothing 
to  indicate. 

The  first  approach  to  a  Bolshevic  steering 
chart  was  to  be  noted  in  the  brief  days  of  the 
Constituent  Assembly.  When  the  duly  author- 
ized and  regularly  mandated  representatives 
of  the  Russian  people's  will  were  in  session  the 
Bolshevics  presented  a  declaration  of  policy 
which  they  demanded  the  Assembly  should 
adopt.  It  was  when  the  motion  to  adopt  it  was 
defeated  that  the  Bolshevics  marched  out  of 
the  hall  and  at  four  o'clock  in  the  morning  the 
sailors  with  their  rifles  ushered  the  Assembly 
into  the  streets  and  out  of  existence  forever. 
I  have  heard  the  assertion  in  America  that  this 
action  committed  upon  a  body  elected  by  the 
free  vote  of  all  Russia  was  a  better  indication  of 
Bolshevic  theories  than  any  printed  exposition 


82         BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

could  be,  but  that  must  remain  a  question  for 
individual  judgment. 

The  document  the  Bolshevics  handed  to  the 
Constituent  Assembly  was  called  a  "Declara- 
tion of  the  Rights  of  the  Toiling  and  Exploited 
People."  It  announced  Russia  to  be  "a  repub- 
lic of  the  Workers',  Soldiers',  and  Peasants' 
Soviets,"  "based  on  the  free  federation  of  free 
peoples,  on  the  federation  of  National  Soviet 
Republics. ' ' 

"Assuming  as  its  duty  the  destruction  of 
all  exploitation  of  the  workers,"  the  declara- 
tion then  favors  these  measures: 

1.  The  socialization  of  land;  the  private  own- 
ership of  land  to  be  abolished,  "all  the  land 
to  be  proclaimed  the  common  property  of  the 
people  and  turned  over  to  the  toiling  masses 
without  compensation  on  the  basis  of  equal 
right  to  the  use  of  the  land." 

2.  "All  forests,  mines,  and  waters,  which  are 
of  social  importance,  as  well  as  all  living  and 
other  forms  of  property  and  all  agricultural 
enterprises,  to  be  declared  national  property." 

3.  Inspection  of  working  conditions,  which 
is  described  as  "the  first  step  in  achieving 
the  ownership  by  the  Soviet  of  the  factories, 
mines,  railroads  and  means  of  production  and 
transportation, ' ' 


WHAT   IS  BOLSHEVISM?  83 

4.  All  banks  to  be  transferred  to  the  owner- 
ship of  the  Soviet  Republic,  "as  one  of  the 
steps  in  the  freeini?  of  the  toiling  masses  from 
the  yoke  of  capitalism." 

5.  "To  enforce  compulsory  labor  in  order  to 
destroy  the  class  of  parasites  and  to  reorganize 
the  economic  life." 

6.  The  toiling  masses  to  be  armed  and  the 
exploiting  classes  to  be  disarmed. 

7.  To  publish  all  secret  treaties,  "to  or- 
ganize the  most  extensive  fraternization  be- 
tween the  workers  and  peasants  of  the  warring 
armies  and  by  Revolutionary  methods  to  bring 
about  a  democratic  peace,"  adding,  signifi- 
cantly, "at  any  price." 

8.  Complete  separation  from  "the  brutal 
policy  of  the  bourgeoisie  which  furthers  the 
well-being  of  the  exploiters  in  a  few  selected 
nations  by  enslaving  hundreds  of  millions  of 
the  toiling  peoples  of  the  colonies  and  the  small 
nations  generally." 

9.  All  foreign  loans  made  by  the  govern- 
ments of  the  Czar,  the  landowners  and  the 
bourgeoisie  to  be  annulled  and  the  Soviet  gov- 
ernment "to  continue  firmly  on  this  road  until 
the  final  victory  from  the  yoke  of  capitalism 
is  won  through  international  workers'  revolt." 
I  give  this  as  it  appears.    There  is  no  explana- 


84         BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

tion  of  how  the  repudiating  of  foreign  indebt- 
edness, public  and  private,  can  be  a  road 
through  international  workers'  revolt  to  vic- 
tory from  the  yoke  of  capitalism,  but  anyway 
this  is  what  was  demanded. 

10.  The  Constituent  Assembly  to  contract 
itself  not  to  oppose  the  Soviet  power  for  the 
remarkable  reason  that  the  Assembly  having 
been  elected  before  the  Bolshevic  coup  of 
November  7,  the  people  had  not  yet  risen 
against  their  exploiters  and  did  not  know  their 
own  power. 

11.  No  exploiter  to  have  a  seat  in  any  gov- 
ernment organization  or  institution. 

12.  "Supporting  the  Soviet  rule  and  ac- 
cepting the  orders  of  the  Council  of  People's 
Commissars,  the  Constituent  Assembly  ac- 
knowledges its  duty  to  outline  a  form  for  the 
reorganization  of  society." 

**  Striving  at  the  same  time  to  organize  a 
free  and  voluntary,  and  thereby  a  complete  and 
strong  union  among  the  toiling  classes  of  all 
the  Russian  nations,  the  Constituent  Assembly 
limits  itself  to  outlining  the  bases  of  the  fed- 
eration of  Russian  Soviet  Republics,  leaving 
to  the  people,  to  the  workers  and  soldiers,  to 
decide  for  themselves,  in  their  own  Soviet 
meetings,  if  they  are  willing  and  on  what  con- 


WHAT   IS   BOLSHEVISM?  85 

ditions  they  prefer,  to  join  the  federated  gov- 
ernment and  other  federations  of  Soviet  enter- 
prise. 

*' These  general  principles  are  to  be  published 
without  delay,  and  the  official  representatives 
of  the  Soviet  are  required  to  read  them  at  the 
opening  of  the  Constituent  Assembly."* 

That  was  all.  The  "form  for  the  reorgani- 
zation of  society"  was  not  '^ outlined"  in  this 
document,  nor  in  any  other  of  Bolshevic  origin 
that  I  have  been  able  to  find  although  it  is  the 
very  point  about  which  information  is  most  re- 
quired. We  are  left  to  the  conclusion  that 
society  was  to  be  reorganized  by  being  re- 
organized. 

Supposing  a  majority  of  the  Constituent  As- 
sembly to  be  normally  minded  one  can  hardly 
see  what  it  could  do  with  this  document 
except  to  reject  it.  Perhaps  it  was  composed  to 
that  end;  let  us  try  to  think  that  it  was.  Lay- 
ing aside  the  requirements  that  the  Assembly 
should  place  itself  under  the  orders  of  the 
Soviet  and  limit  itself  to  the  outlining  of  a  basis 
for  the  federation  of  the  Soviet  Republics,  the 
proposals  about  property  were  enough  to  sug- 
gest an  expedition  from  a  madhouse.    It  may 

*  Condensed  from  Miss  Bryant's  Six  Red  Months  in 
Russia,  pp.  92  to  97,  where  it  is  given  in  full. 


86         BOLSHEVISM   AND  THE  XHSTITED   STATES 

be  well  enough  that  **all  forests,  mines  and 
waters  which  [that]  are  of  social  importance/' 
should  become  the  national  possession,  but  the 
suggestion  that  ''all  living  and  other  forms  of 
property  and  all  agricultural  enterprises" 
should  go  the  same  way  exceeds  anything  ever 
heard  outside  the  back  room  of  Paul  Lieber- 
grief 's  saloon  where  the  Anarchist  Verein  used 
to  meet.  Even  there  I  doubt  if  they  could  be 
heard  before  one  a.m.  and  then  in  thick  and 
husky  voices.  Doubtless,  according  to  Anarchist 
doctrine,  there  should  be  no  private  possessions, 
but  if  we  are  to  have  any  form  of  organized 
government  and  it  is  to  assume  the  sole 
ownership  of  all  the  horses,  mules  and  jacks, 
cows,  whether  milch  or  otherwise,  goats,  dogs, 
eats,  parrots  and  canary  birds,  I  should  think 
it  might  have  quite  a  task. 

It  is  much  to  be  regretted  that  the  Bolshevic 
writers  in  this  and  other  countries,  many  of 
them  exceedingly  able  and  gifted,  have  never 
helped  us  to  an  elucidation  of  these  mysteries. 
''All  agricultural  enterprises,"  for  example. 
Does  that  mean  that  after  seizing  the  farms, 
as  outlined  in  a  previous  paragraph,  the  gov- 
ernment is  to  carry  on  the  operations  of  plow- 
ing, seeding,  weeding,  harvesting?  If  so,  what 
was  the  use  of  dividing  the  land  among  the 


WHAT  IS  BOLSHEVISM?  87 

peasants?  As  the  government  is  to  have  all 
the  land  anyway  and  do  all  the  work,  a  peasant 
need  have  no  care  about  the  land  or  anything 
else.  In  fact,  when  we  come  to  think  of  that, 
how  can  you  divide  the  land  among  the  peasants 
and  at  the  same  time  keep  it  all  for  the  govern- 
ment? I  suppose  this  can  be  done,  because  the 
Bolshevics  proposed  to  do  it,  but  the  exact 
method  of  the  operation  is  what  fascinates  me. 
It  would  seem  to  render  so  simple  the  old  dif- 
ficulty of  eating  a  cake  and  keeping  it  too. 

Also,  I  have  not  yet  been  able  to  see  how  the 
inspection  of  working  conditions  is  a  step 
toward  the  ownership  of  factories,  mines,  and 
railroads.  It  may  be,  of  course,  and  probably 
is,  but  I  wish  the  point  had  been  made  clearer. 
We  have  had  inspection  of  working  conditions 
in  New  York  now  for  many  years  but  we  have 
never  copped  off  a  single  railroad  from  it,  so 
far  as  I  know.  It  is  to  be  supposed  that  we  do 
not  go  at  the  task  rightly.  If  there  is  a  charm 
about  it  we  have  not  the  secret  of  the  charm. 
Far  be  it  from  me  to  suggest  any  criticism  of 
the  excellent  minds  and  sincere  reformers  that 
are  engaged  in  teaching  the  arcana  of  Bolshe- 
vic  salvation  to  untutored  America.  I  should 
be  unworthy  of  such  a  work.  But  it  does  seem 
as  if  they  might   some   day  cease   from  the 


88         BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

hymnal  of  praise  long  enough  to  explain  some 
of  these  things  so  that  the  average  mind  could 
see  them. 

Also,  while  I  am  quite  prepared  to  see  much 
virtue  in  a  banking  business  conducted  by  the 
state,  to  speak  in  this  swift  and  airy  way  of 
'  *  transferring  all  banks  to  the  ownership  of  the 
Soviet  Republic"  is  rather  puzzling.  To  most 
of  us,  I  think,  that  have  lived  observantly  in 
this  world  a  bank  seems  a  rather  complicated 
piece  of  mechanism  and  not  like  a  baseball  to 
be  tossed  back  and  forth.  We  may  not  care 
much  for  banks  as  they  are  generally  conducted, 
but  the  fact  remains  that  in  an  ordered  system 
of  society  they  play  an  indispensable  part  in 
the  work  of  production  and  distribution.  If 
we  are  to  turn  them  thus  overnight  into  the 
hands  of  the  Soviets  I  should  think  some  im- 
portant questions  would  arise.  Who  is  to  man- 
age them,  supervise  them,  see  that  they  make 
no  bad  loans,  accept  no  bad  paper,  suffer  no 
serious  overdrafts,  maintain  the  confidence  of 
their  depositors? 

Certainly  nobody  connected  with  the  Soviets. 
Men  that  at  present  well  understand  the 
banking  business  belong  to  that  ''exploiting 
class"  ruled  out  of  any  connection  with  the 
government  and  even  debarred  from  voting.    It 


I 


WHAT   IS   BOLSHEVISM?  89 

may  perhaps  be  answered  that  under  the  Soviet 
ownership  the  old  bank  presidents  and  cashiers 
will  be  retained,  and  that,  of  course,  is  conceiv- 
able. But  if  they  are  it  will  assuredly  be  com- 
pulsory and  unwelcome  labor,  performed  with- 
out interest  and  without  efficienc}^  for  what 
attention  to  the  work  in  hand  can  be  expected 
in  a  class  expressly  stigmatized  as  unworthy 
and  expressly  shut  out  of  the  franchise?  It 
would  occur  to  the  ordinary  mind,  I  should  say, 
that  if  you  are  going  to  constitute  a  new  class 
of  helots  in  your  society  you  must  not  expect 
them  to  perform  well  the  most  difficult  and  deli- 
cate tasks  of  business  management. 

Moreover,  the  banks  are  to  be  seized  without 
any  compensation  to  the  owners.  Without  de- 
bating the  morals  or  justice  of  this  proposal, 
I  beg  leave  to  point  out  that  except  where  the 
state  inaugurates  or  by  purchase  secures  a 
bank  the  capital  necessary  to  enable  it  to  fulfill 
its  functions  to  society  is  o\\Tied  by  the  men 
that  put  money  into  the  enterprise  on  exactly 
the  same  basis  as  that  on  which  the  depositors 
own  their  deposits.  If  the  ownership  of  the 
capital  in  the  bank  is  wrong  and  without  va- 
lidity, then  the  ownership  of  the  deposits  by 
the  depositors  must  be  equally  wrong  and  in- 
valid, and  if  the  Soviets  can  seize  one  they  can 


90         BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

seize  the  other.  The  gentlemen  that  proposed 
this  innovation  must  have  been  unaware  that 
a  bank,  whether  owned  by  the  state  or  by  pri- 
vate citizens,  can  do  business  only  by  virtue  of 
the  confidence  of  its  depositors,  and  equally 
unaware  of  the  proportionate  relations  of  de- 
posits to  capital. 

If  you  can  wipe  out  capital  you  can  wipe  out 
deposits  and  if  you  have  or  profess  to  have 
the  mere  right  to  wipe  out  deposits  there  is  no 
more  banking. 

If  the  Bolshevics  had  desired  to  abolish  the 
bank  as  an  instrument  of  human  society  that 
would  be  another  matter.  There  was  a  time  in 
human  society  when  there  were  no  banks.  If 
we  should  return  to  the  state  of  savage  nomadic 
tribes  wandering  about  with  our  flocks  and 
herds,  it  is  conceivable  we  could  get  along  with- 
out banks.  To  force  mankind  to  resume  the 
economic  and  social  organization  of  Abraham 
and  Lot  would  be  a  considerable  undertaking, 
but  I  should  think  the  authors  of  the  declaration 
I  have  been  quoting  from  would  regard  it  as 
easy — skin  clothes,  stone  hatchets  and  all. 

Personally,  I  most  regret  that  no  elucidation 
has  been  furnished  about  the  proposal  to  en- 
force compulsory  labor,  which  after  all  is  the 
most  interesting  part  of  the  program.    I  had 


WHAT  IS   BOLSHlliVISM?  91 

been  under  the  impression  that  mankind  had 
universally  set  the  seal  of  its  condemnation  on 
this  condition,  the  United  States  having  fought 
four  years  of  terribly  costly  war  to  abolish  it 
and  all  other  civilized  nations  having  professed 
abhorrence  for  it,  I  had  supposed  that  any  pro- 
posal to  revive  it  would  meet  with  widespread 
and  bitter  protest,  and  am  the  more  astounded 
to  find  that  estimable  and  presumably  thought- 
ful persons  in  this  country  and  Great  Britain 
seem  quite  indifferent  about  it.  I  am  willing 
to  admit  that  the  men  and  women  to  be  enslaved 
under  this  device  belong  or  used  to  belong  to 
the  parasite  and  exploiting  classes,  but  the  idea 
of  condemning  them  to  slavery  to  punish  them 
for  a  system  and  environment  for  which  they 
were  never  responsible  seems  to  go  rather  far. 
I  know  well  that  when  the  parasites  were 
in  power  they  went  quite  as  far  or  farther.  I 
have  not  forgotten  and  am  not  likely  to  forget 
the  million  that  gasped  out  their  lives  in  the 
horrors  of  Siberia  for  no  crime  except  service 
for  liberty.  But  the  persons  responsible  for 
those  iniquities  are  not  the  persons  that  would 
be  enslaved  under  this  plan,  and  even  if  they 
were  this  would  be  no  way  to  deal  with  them 
because  this  is  not  justice,  it  is  revenge;  and 


92         BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

if  human  existence  has  proved  anything  it  is 
the  huge  waste  and  folly  of  revenge. 

It  is  the  same  way  about  the  exploiting  class. 
Exploitation  deserves  nothing  of  mankind  ex- 
cept to  be  uprooted  and  cast  forth  forever,  but 
wherein  shall  it  profit  us  to  execute  upon  its 
beneficiaries  a  blind  and  senseless  vengeance? 
It  is  not  their  will  nor  their  fault  that  the  pres- 
ent system,  product  of  centuries  of  develop- 
ment, has  been  erected.  We  need  not  be  oblivi- 
ous or  indifferent  to  the  slum  and  all  its  horrors 
to  see  that  we  shall  gain  nothing  by  shooting 
landlords  or  hanging  millionaires.  The  spirit 
is  that  of  a  lynching  party  and  nothing  has  ever 
been  gained  from  a  lynching  party  except 
shame,  degradation  and  the  fateful  seeds  of 
trouble. 

If,  therefore,  all  the  rest  of  the  declaration 
were  wise  and  possible  this  one  provision  would 
prove  it  to  be  the  work  of  men  without  practical 
wisdom  or  any  knowledge  of  life  as  it  really  is 
and  must  be.  And  could  such  men  found  a 
state? 

Yet  I  ought  to  say  in  fairness  that  the  docu- 
ment we  have  been  discussing  is  not  to  be  taken 
in  all  its  details  as  a  definite  statement  of  Bol- 
shevism in  theory  and  practice.  Possibly  it  is 
not  to  be  regarded  as  more  serious  in  this  re- 


TVTIAT   IS   BOLSHEVISM?  93 

spect  than  a  good  natured  forecast  of  the  world 
a  million  years  hence,  and  again  it  may  have 
been  nothing  more  than  a  political  maneuver, 
like  the  ultimatum  of  Austria,  to  produce  an 
impossible  demand  and  provide  a  reasonable 
occasion  for  the  bayonets.  In  that  case  we  are 
to  search  again  for  a  satisfying  verbal  answer 
to  the  question.  What  is  Bolshevism?  Other 
kinds  of  answers  abound,  and  these  we  shall 
observe  later;  but  chronologically,  we  ought 
first  to  note  that  the  next  utterance  of  Bolshevic 
policy  came  close  upon  the  coup  of  November 
7,  1917,  in  the  proclamation  of  a  Constitution 
for  the  Soviet  Republic.  This  document  being 
too  long  to  quote  in  full  I  will  offer  the  excel- 
lent summary  prepared  by  the  Appeal  to 
Reason. 

*' Article  1  sets  forth  the  'declaration  of 
rights  of  the  laboring  and  exploited  people.' 
Broadly,  the  character  of  the  Bolshevic  govern- 
ment is  stated  as  follows :  1.  Russia  is  declared 
to  be  a  Republic  of  the  Soviet  of  Workers', 
Soldiers'  and  Peasants'  Deputies.  All  the  cen- 
tral and  local  power  belongs  to  these  Soviets. 
2.  The  Russian  Soviet  Republic  is  organized  on 
the  basis  of  a  free  union  of  free  nations,  as  a 
federation  of  Soviet  National  Republics. 


94         BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

*'The  essential  purpose  of  the  Soviet  regime 
is  sweepingly  declared  to  be  'the  entire  aboli- 
tion of  the  division  of  the  people  into  classes, 
the  suppression  of  exploiters,  the  establishment 
of  a  Socialist  society  and  the  victory  of  Social- 
ism in  all  lands.'  Toward  this  end  Revolution- 
ary measures  are  adopted. 

"Private  property  in  land  is  abolished,  the 
land  is  proclaimed  national  property  and  is 
thrown  open  to  the  use  of  the  people  without 
compensation  to  the  dispossessed  landlords, 
each  being  given  the  use  of  as  much  land  as  he 
can  till  with  his  own  labor. 

*' All  natural  resources — such  as  forests,  min- 
erals, water  power,  etc. — are  recognized  as  na- 
tional property. 

''With  a  view  to  complete  ownership  of  in- 
dustry by  the  Soviet  Republic,  the  workmen  are 
placed  directly  in  control  of  the  mills  and  fac- 
tories, etc.,  under  the  general  supervision  of  the 
Supreme  Soviet  of  National  Economy. 

"As  a  defensive  financial  measure,  the  wiping 
out  of  loans  negotiated  by  the  government  of 
the  Czar,  by  the  landowners  and  by  the  bour- 
geoisie is  proposed. 

"All  banks  are  placed  into  the  hands  of  the 
people's  government. 


WHAT   IS   BOLSHEVISM?  95 

**A11  must  work,  it  is  declared;  no  parasites 
will  be  tolerated. 

*'To  protect  the  workers'  republic  from  ag- 
gression by  the  exploiters,  the  organization  of 
a  Socialist  Red  Army  and  the  disarming  of 
the  propertied  class  are  decreed. 

*'A11  secret  treaties  of  the  Czar  are  repu- 
diated. 

*'As  a  means  of  keeping  the  Revolution  in  the 
hands  of  its  friends,  exploiters  are  prohibited 
from  holding  any  positions  in  the  government 
and  denied  any  power,  which  'must  belong  en- 
tirely to  the  toiling  masses.' 

*'The  right  is  granted  to  the  various  peoples 
of  Russia  to  choose  whether  they  will  partici- 
pate in  the  general  Soviet  government. 

''Article  2  outlines  'general  provisions.'  All 
power  is  declared  to  rest  in  the  working  people 
of  city  and  country.  Self-government  through 
their  own  Soviets  is  extended  to  regions  whose 
life  and  interests  differ  from  the  general  life 
and  interest,  with  the  right  to  unite  with  the 
general  government  on  this  basis. 

"The  church  is  completely  separated  from  the 
State  and  the  right  of  religious  or  anti-religious 
propaganda  is  given  to  every  citizen. 

"Freedom  of  the  press  is  safeguarded  by  the 
government  placing  in  the  hands  of  'the  work- 


96         BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

ing  people  and  the  poorest  peasantry  all  tech- 
nical and  material  means  of  publication  of 
newspapers,  books,  pamphlets,'  etc.,  and  the 
government  'guarantees  their  free  circulation 
throughout  the  country.'  Halls  are  also  freely 
provided  and  maintained  in  order  that  the  peo- 
ple may  hold  free  public  meetings  everywhere. 

**  Assistance  is  offered  by  the  government  to 
any  union  or  organization  of  the  workers  or 
the  peasantry. 

''Free  education  is  to  be  given  to  the  people 
through  the  efforts  of  the  government. 

"Foreigners  living  in  Russia  have  the  same 
rights  as  citizens  provided  they  'are  engaged 
in  toil  and  belong  to  the  toiling  class.' 

"Article  3  gives  the  details  of  the  political 
form  of  the  Soviet  government.  These  details 
cannot  be  given  in  full  in  this  brief  summary, 
but  must  be  reduced  to  generalities.  The  All- 
Russian  Congress  is  the  highest  assembly  of 
the  people  and  is  composed  of  representatives 
from  the  local  Soviets ;  it  meets  at  least  twice 
a  year,  vnth.  a  provision  for  special  meetings  of 
the  Congress.  This  All-Russian  Congress  elects 
the  All-Russian  Central  Executive  Committee 
which  is  the  supreme  active  governing  body  of 
Russia.  The  work  of  this  committee  is  to  direct 
generally  the  activities  of  the  people  through 


WHAT  IS  BOLSHEVISM?  97 

the  various  Soviets.  The  technical  administra- 
tion of  affairs  rests  with  the  Council  of  People's 
Commissars,  which  is  formed  by  the  Central 
Committee.  There  are  seventeen  People 's  Com- 
missars having  charge  of  different  departments 
of  national  business.  These  Commissars  are 
responsible  to  the  Central  Committee,  which  in 
turn  is  responsible  to  the  All-Russian  Congress. 
Each  Commissar  has  a  college  of  assistants  or 
conferees  to  whom  he  must  deliver  reports,  and 
this  College  may  appeal  decisions  of  the  Com- 
missar to  the  Central  Committee.  The  All-Rus- 
sian  Congress  and  the  Central  Committee  deal 
with  all  the  broad  affairs  of  state,  both  domestic 
and  foreign. 

"Lower  assemblies  of  the  people  consist  of 
regional,  provincial,  county  and  rural  Con- 
gresses of  Soviets.  Representatives  to  these 
Congresses  are  apportioned  oji  the  basis  of  mem- 
bership in  the  urban  (city),  county,  rural  and 
village  Soviets.  Each  Congress  has  an  execu- 
tive committee  similar  to  the  Central  Commit- 
tee of  the  All-Russian  Congress,  which  call  the 
Congresses,  at  least  twice  a  year.  The  Congress 
is  the  supreme  local  power  in  its  particular  ter- 
ritory and  the  committee  is  the  supreme  admin- 
istrative body.  Soviets  are  formed  in  cities, 
villages,  and  rural  sections  with  membership  on 


98         BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

the  basis  of  population,  and  the  deputies  con- 
stituting these  Soviets  are  elected  for  a  term  of 
three  months.  Local  Soviets  also  have  executive 
committees.  The  Soviets  meet  at  least  once  a 
week  in  cities  and  twice  a  week  in  the  rural 
sections. 

"Article  4  gives  voting  rights  and  election 
procedure.  The  right  to  vote  is  granted  to  the 
following  citizens  without  restrictions :  All  citi- 
zens who  earn  their  living  through  useful  labor, 
including  housekeepers  and  tillers  of  the  soil 
who  have  no  hired  help  that  they  exploit;  all 
soldiers  of  the  army  and  navy  of  the  Soviets; 
and  all  citizens  of  these  two  classes  who  are  in- 
capacitated for  work.  Both  sexes  may  vote 
upon  reaching  the  age  of  eighteen  years.  The 
following  citizens  are  denied  the  right  to  vote 
or  hold  office. 

"Persons  who  employ  hired  labor  in  order 
to  obtain  from  it  an  increase  in  profits. 

"Persons  who  have  an  income  without  doing 
any  work,  such  as  interest  from  capital,  receipts 
from  property,  etc.  i 

"Private  merchants,  trade  and  commercial 
brokers. 

"Monks  and  clergy  of  all  denominations. 

"Employees  and  agents  of  the  former  police, 
the  gendarme  corps,  and  the  Okhrana  [Czar's 


WHAT  IS  BOLSHEVISM?  99 

secret  service],  also  members  of  the  former 
reigning  dynasty. 

"Persons  who  have  in  legal  form  been  de- 
clared demented  or  mentally  deficient,  and  also 
persons  under  guardianship. 

"Persons  who  have  been  deprived  by  a  Soviet 
of  their  rights  of  citizenship  because  of  selfish 
or  dishonorable  offenses,  for  the  period  fixed  by 
the  sentence." 

The  days  on  which  elections  are  to  be  held 
are  decided  by  the  local  Soviets,  and  are  con- 
ducted in  the  presence  of  an  election  committee 
and  representative  of  the  local  Soviet.  An  ac- 
count of  the  conduct  and  the  results  of  elections 
is  to  be  prepared  and  signed  by  the  election 
committee  and  the  Soviet  representative.  In- 
structions regarding  elections  are  issued  by  the 
local  Soviets.  The  Soviets  pass  upon  the  reports 
of  elections.  A  deputy  to  a  Soviet  may  be  re- 
called by  the  voters  who  elected  him,  and 
another  deputy  chosen  in  his  place  by  a  new 
election. 

"Article  5  outlines  the  financial  policy  of  the 
Russian  Soviet  Government.  Mainly  it  de- 
scribes the  manner  in  which  the  various  Soviet 
organizations  may  raise  funds  and  make  ex- 


100      BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

penditures,  the  provisions  of  which  appear  very 
liberal.  The  Soviet  government  guarantees  to 
supply  all  Soviet  bodies  with  necessary  funds 
and  to  do  this  'without  regard  to  private  prop- 
erty rights'  but  with  regard  to  'the  fundamen- 
tal purpose  of  expropriation  of  the  bourgeoisie 
and  the  preparation  of  conditions  necessary  for 
the  equality  of  all  citizens  of  Russia  in  the  pro- 
duction and  distribution  of  wealth. ' ' 

Perhaps  it  would  be  unfair  to  ask  that  such 
a  document  should  indicate  how  the  wealth  is 
to  be  produced  under  such  a  system,  and  by 
whom ;  but  we  have  to  note  that  all  other  sources 
of  knowledge  on  this  subject  are  as  barren  as 
this  Constitution.  The  present  system  of  pro- 
duction and  distribution  is  abolished,  nothing 
is  provided  to  take  its  place,  and  as  we  shall 
presently  see  it  is  upon  this  rock  that  the  ship 
of  Lenine's  hopes  has  foundered. 

Fourteen  months  of  experience  seem  to  have 
brought  the  commanders  no  nearer  to  a  solution 
of  the  difficulty.  In  the  call  issued  January  23, 
1919,  for  the  first  International  Communist 
Congress,  mentioned  in  the  first  chapter,  there 
is  the  following  statement  of  Communist  or  Bol- 
shevic  aims,  which  certainly  has  no  help  for 


WHAT  IS  BOLSHEVISM?  101 

the  eager  searcher  for  light  about  these  mat- 
ters: 

**The  Congress  of  the  International  Com- 
mune has  deemed  it  necessary  and  urgent  to 
convoke  the  first  congress  of  the  New  Revolu- 
tionary International.  While  the  war  has 
brought  about  the  complete  bankruptcy  of  both 
the  Socialist  and  Social  Democratic  parties,  it 
has  also  revealed  the  danger  that  the  Revolution 
may  now  be  stifled  by  an  alliance  of  the  capi- 
talists of  the  different  countries  who  coalesce 
against  it  under  the  hypocritical  device  of  a 
League  of  Nations.  The  attempts  of  the  ele- 
ments that  have  proved  traitors  to  Socialism  to 
unite  among  themselves  that  they  may  once 
more  aid  their  governments  and  their  bour- 
geoisie to  deceive  the  working  class,  the  Revolu- 
tionary experience  already  gained,  the  hope  to 
internationalize  the  whole  of  the  Revolutionary 
movement — all  these  motives  impel  to  the  call- 
ing now  of  an  international  assembly  of  the 
Revolutionary  proletariat  of  the  world. 

"For  the  International  we  declare  our  belief 
that  the  following  principles  should  be  the  plat- 
form of  such  a  congress : 

"1.  The  present  period  is  the  period  of  the 


102      BOLSHEVISM  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES 

dissolution  and  fall  of  the  entire  capitalistic 
system  of  the  world. 

'*2.  The  task  of  the  proletariat  of  to-day  is  to 
take  possession  of  the  governmental  power  in 
order  to  replace  it  with  the  machinery  of  pro- 
letarian rule. 

'*3.  This  new  machinery  must  embody  the 
dictatorship  of  the  working  class  and  in  some 
places  that  of  the  small  farmers  and  agricul- 
tural workers,  that  it  may  be  the  instrument 
of  the  systematic  ruin  of  the  exploiting  classes. 

"4.  The  dictatorship  of  the  working  class 
must  pursue  the  immediate  expropriation  of 
capitalism  [put  it  out  of  all  its  possessions] 
and  the  suppression  of  private  ownership  in  the 
means  of  production ;  which  signifies  under  the 
name  of  Socialism,  the  suppression  of  private 
property  and  its  transfer  to  the  proletarian 
state  under  the  Socialist  administration  of  the 
working  class;  also  the  abolition  of  capitalist 
agricultural  production,  and  the  monopolization 
of  the  great  commercial  houses  and  lines  of 
business. 

**5,  To  ensure  the  social  revolution  the  dis- 
armament of  the  bourgeoisie  and  its  agents  and 
the  general  arming  of  the  proletariat  are  neces- 
sary. 

**6.  The  fundamental  condition  of  the  strug- 


WHAT  IS   BOLSHEVISM?  103 

gle  is  the  mass  action  of  the  proletariat,  extend- 
ing even  to  open  war  with  the  iron  fist  against 
the  governmental  power  of  capitalism. 

"7.  The  old  International  is  broken  into  three 
principal  groups:  the  Socialists  openly  patri- 
otic, who,  through  all  the  years  of  the  imperial- 
istic war,  1914  to  1918,  supported  their  own 
bourgeoisie;  the  minority  Socialists,  now 
changed  into  the  Center,  of  whom  the  real  chief 
is  Kautsky,  and  who  are  a  group  composed  of 
elements  always  too  hesitating  and  incapable  to 
have  any  directing  force;  and  finally,  the  Left 
or  Revolutionary  wing. 

''8.  Against  the  Socialist  patriots  that 
through  the  war  and  even  in  the  most  critical 
moments  have  borne  arms  against  the  Revolu- 
tion, only  one  course  is  possible  and  that  is  war 
without  mercy.  As  to  the  Center  (Kautsky 
type)  the  tactics  are  to  consist  of  separating 
from  them  the  Revolutionary  element,  pitilessly 
criticizing  their  chiefs  and  spreading  divisions 
among  their  adherents.  These  tactics  become 
absolutely  necessary  when  we  reach  a  certain 
stage  of  development. 

*'9.  As  to  the  rest  it  is  necessary  to  act  in 
solid  agreement  with  the  Revolutionary  elements 
among  the  working  class  that  no  matter  what 
party  they  may  have  hitherto  belonged  to  are 


104       BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

now  ready  to  adopt  the  Dictatorship  of  the  Pro- 
letariat under  the  power  of  the  Soviets ;  includ- 
ing the  Syndicalist  elements  in  the  labor  move- 
ment. 

''10.  Finally,  it  is  necessary  to  rally  the  labor 
groups  and  organizations  that  although  they 
may  not  have  joined  as  yet  the  Eevolutionary 
element  of  the  Left  have  shown  a  tendency  to 
move  in  that  direction." 

There  follows  next  the  list  I  previously  cited 
of  the  thirty-nine  groups  in  twenty-nine  coun- 
tries that  are  expected  to  send  delegates  to  the 
Congress. 

But  all  the  information  herein  contained  is 
political  (or  prophetic) ;  none  of  it  is  economic; 
none  of  it  deals  in  any  way  with  the  plain,  pro- 
saic, but  unavoidable  questions  of  daily  bread 
and  butter ;  the  same  lack  that  has  shown  itself 
in  all  the  other  utterances  from  similar  sources. 
Still,  we  need  not  grope  in  the  darkness  of  igno- 
rance. There  is  one  source  of  knowledge  as  to 
the  practical  side  of  Bolshevism  that  is  com- 
plete, infallible  and  as  convincing  as  even  the 
ablest  writers  in  the  cause  could  make  it.  The 
element  that  accepts  the  creed  above  outlined, 
although  constituting  to-day  not  one-tenth  of 
the  people  of  Russia,  has  been  since  November 


WHAT  IS   BOLSHEVISM?  105 

7,  1917,  in  absolute  control  of  the  affairs  of  the 
country.  The  means  by  which  it  has  maintained 
that  control  are  yet  to  be  described  in  detail, 
but  may  be  surmised.  For  almost  a  year  and 
a  half  the  Bolshevist  chiefs  have  had  every  op- 
portunity to  test  their  theories  in  practice  and 
show  us  the  exact  methods  by  which  they  would 
bring  about  the  New  Day,  the  Glad  Utopia,  the 
emancipation  of  an  exploited  and  do^\^l-trodden 
race,  and  any  one  that  will  study  this  demon- 
stration will,  I  am  sure,  deem  it  to  be  sufficient. 


CHAPTER  V 

EIGHTS  AND  LIBERTIES  UNDER  THE  NEW  SYSTEM 

We  will  begin,  if  you  please,  with  the  inno- 
vations wrought  in  the  government.  These  have 
been  hailed  by  a  part  of  the  press  of  America, 
and  that  not  of  the  least  fondness  for  Revolu- 
tion, as  constituting  * '  the  ideal  democracy  of  the 
world."  If  they  are,  no  American  certainly 
should  oppose  or  hesitate  about  endorsing  them. 

The  Bolshevic  literature  I  have  quoted  makes 
repeated  reference  to  the  power  of  the  Soviet. 
This  somewhat  formidable  word  means  merely 
a  legislative  and  governing  assembly  of  elected 
delegates.  A  city  council,  a  board  of  county 
commissioners,  a  state  legislature  or  the  Con- 
gress of  the  United  States  might  be  a  Soviet. 

At  the  time  of  the  Revolution  of  March,  1917, 
the  soldiers  formed  many  Soviets  to  look  out 
for  their  interests.  To  these  workingmen  were 
subsequently  admitted  and  in  some  cases  the 
peasants. 

Soviets  quickly  took  the  place  of  the  old 
106 


LIBERTIES  UNDER  THE  NEW  SYSTEM         107 

municipal  councils  in  the  towns  and  cities. 
Every  government  (or  province)  has  its  Soviet, 
ostensibly  elected  by  the  vote  of  the  people. 
The  Provincial  Soviets  elect  delegates  to  the 
All-Russia  or  National  Soviet,  which  meets 
about  every  three  to  six  months. 

Before  the  Bolshevic  coup  of  November  7, 
1917,  the  All-Russia  Soviet,  composed  of  the 
representatives  of  all  the  people  and  freely 
chosen  was  a  popular  and  efficient  body  and 
for  quick,  intelligent  action  merited  the  praise 
it  "received  from  all  observers. 

After  the  Bolshevics  had  seized  the  govern- 
ment offices  and  proclaimed  Lenine  as  prime 
minister  a  change  was  made  in  the  franchise  and 
the  system  of  election.  It  had  been  the  boast 
of  intelligent  Russians  that  after  the  Revolution 
all  citizens  of  Russia,  men  or  women,  stood 
upon  one  plane  of  equality  in  an  absolute  de- 
mocracy. They  were  not  long  allowed  such  a 
distinction.  The  new  system  adopted  after  the 
Bolshevic  coup  provided  that  delegates  to  the 
Provincial  Soviets  (which  elected  the  delegates 
to  the  National  Soviet)  should  be  chosen  on  this 
basis : 

For  every  125  soldiers,  or  Red  Guards  as  they 
were  called  after  Lenine 's  triumph,  one  dele- 
gate; 


108      BOLSHEVISM    AND    THE   UNITED   STATES 

For  every  1000  factory  workers  or  others  be- 
longing to  what  was  called  the  working  class, 
one  delegate; 

For  every  Volost,  or  union  of  peasants'  vil- 
lages, two  delegates. 

Perhaps  you  do  not  get  the  whole  meaning 
of  this  until  you  know  that  a  volost  may  con- 
tain from  10,000  to  100,000  inhabitants,  and 
seldom  has  fewer  than  15,000.  Say  the  average 
is  20,000,  which  is  a  low  estimate,  the  popular 
franchise  in  Russia  would  work  out  thus: 

Every  soldier  has  one  vote. 

Every  factory  worker  has  one-eighth  of  8, 
vote. 

Every  peasant  has  one-eightieth  of  a  vote. 

For  this  arrangement,  I  hardly  have  need  to 
point  out,  there  is  no  warrant  in  the  Constitu- 
tion that  we  examined  in  the  foregoing  chapter. 
To  be  quite  fair,  the  point  is  unimportant,  for 
the  reason  that  the  whole  Constitution  was  prac- 
tically abolished  soon  after  it  was  promulgated, 
and  now  sleeps  among  the  forgotten  dust  of  the 
Smolney.  I  will  not  venture  to  say  why  it  wa3 
ever  adopted,  but  certainly  as  to  its  speedy 
eclipse  there  can  be  no  mystery.  The  phi- 
losophy of  Lenine  is  in  the  last  analysis  chiefly 
Anarchistic  and  nothing  could  be  more  incon- 
gruous than  for  an  Anarchistic  community  to 


LIBERTIES   UNDER   THE   NEW   SYSTEM        109 

have  a  constitution.  One  difficulty  about  judg- 
ing the  instrument  is  the  constant  uncertainty 
as  to  Lenine's  motives  in  promulgating  it,  an 
uncertainty  he  himself  created  by  his  use  of  so 
many  devices  like  the  wolf  cry  of  the  counter- 
revolution. But  its  value  as  an  indication  of 
the  Bolshevic  theory  of  what  might  constitute 
a  Republic  is  undeniable,  as  we  shall  see  if  we 
refer  once  more  to  Article  4,  defining  the  quali- 
fications of  citizenship.  By  this  article  all  per- 
sons are  excluded  from  the  franchise  that  em- 
ploy hired  labor  to  obtain  an  increase  in  profits ; 
all  persons  that  have  an  income  not  provided 
by  their  work ;  all  private  merchants ;  all  clergy- 
men of  whatsoever  denominations;  and  finally 
all  persons  that  have  been  deprived  by  a  Soviet 
of  their  rights  of  citizenship. 

This  last  and  most  astonishing  provision  put 
the  citizenship  of  every  person  wholly  at  the 
mercy  of  a  Soviet,  and  thereby,  of  course,  made 
all  citizenship  merely  farcical.  A  Soviet  with  a 
Bolshevic  majority  of  one  could  disfranchise 
every  Social  Revolutionary  or  any  other  oppo- 
nent in  the  province.  It  could  rule  with  a 
mightier  and  less  responsible  power  than  the 
Czar  ever  had. 

The  Constitution  declared  with  emphasis 
against  class  government  and  then  proceeded  to 


110      BOLSHEVISM  AND  THE   UNITED  STATES 

erect  the  most  strictly  guarded  class  govern- 
ment that  had  ever  been  devised,  for  the  effect 
of  Article  4  was  to  disfranchise  millions  of 
small  cultivators,  even  though  they  might  em- 
ploy but  one,  two  or  three  farm  hands ;  millions 
of  small  artisans  that  employed  helpers,  many 
carpenters,  joiners,  shoemakers,  master 
masons,  all  hotel  and  inn-keepers,  millions  of 
men  in  other  occupations.  Practically  all  mer- 
chants are  in  the  same  category,  with  all  com- 
mercial travelers,  agents,  brokers,  forwarders, 
commission  men,  no  matter  how  useful  might  be 
their  services  to  society.  Almost  all  profes- 
sional men  are  ruled  out.  Even  the  smallest 
storekeeper  is  disfranchised  if  he  has  a  sinr^le 
assistant. 

This  may  be  ideal,  but  assuredly  to  call  it 
democratic  is  to  lose  all  sense  of  the  meaning 
of  words.  We  do  not  go  back  one  hundred  years 
and  call  the  land-owning  oligarchy  that  then 
controlled  England  a  democracy,  and  this  ar- 
rangement is  still  farther  away. 

One,  at  least,  of  its  effects  was  manifest  at 
once.  Twelve  years  before  Lenine  had  de- 
nounced the  peasant  as  the  great  stumbling 
block  in  the  way  of  the  industrial  revolution. 
He  had  said  without  the  least  concealment  that 
when  the  proletarian  uprising  should  come  radi- 


LIBERTIES   UNDER   THE   NEW   SYSTEM         111 

cal  steps  must  be  taken  to  keep  the  peasant  out 
of  the  government  and  these  are  the  steps  he 
took.  They  would  seem  to  be  fairly  effective 
to  disfranchise  millions  of  peasants  and  give  to 
the  rest  one-eightieth  of  the  power  in  the  gov- 
ernment assigned  to  soldiers. 

The  provision  about  the  soldiers'  vote  was 
almost  equally  transparent.  The  Ked  Guards 
were  devoted  to  Lenine,  received  high  pay,  a 
disproportionate  allowance  of  the  scanty  food, 
and  many  privileges;  they  could  be  depended 
upon  to  do  his  will.  He  had  not  read  in  vain 
the  history  of  the  Roman  Empire. 

It  was  to  centralize  and  simplify  the  govern- 
ing machine  that  Lenine  created  the  Committee 
to  Combat  the  Counter-Revolution,  and  it  soon 
became  the  i*eal  government  of  the  country, 
aside  from  the  mind  of  Lenine  himself.  Under 
the  plea  of  circumventing  a  counter-revolution 
the  committee  could  do  any  stricken  thing;  it 
had  absolute  powers.  Anything  that  could  be 
mentioned  or  imagined,  from  censoring  letters 
to  summary  sentencing  to  death,  could  be 
deemed  important  to  prevent  a  counter-revolu- 
tion. An  obnoxious  person  could  be  removed 
more  quickly  and  easily  than  in  the  worst  days 
of  the  Bastile;  it  was  but  necessary  to  declare 
that  he  favored  the  counter-revolution.    Say  a 


112       BOLSHEVISM  AND  THE   UNITED   STATES 

family  coveted  the  dwelling  of  another  family; 
do  but  intimate  that  the  second  family  is  in- 
volved in  a  plot  to  bring  in  the  counter-revolu- 
tion and  the  thing  is  done,  the  obnoxious  family 
is  evicted.  To  the  unscrupulous  with  motives 
of  rivalry,  jealousy,  covetousness,  interest, 
whim,  caprice  or  mere  cruelty  the  door  stood 
open  and  was  presently  thronged.  So  under  the 
like  conditions  would  it  be  anywhere.  Unre- 
strained, unobserved,  unlimited  and  irrespon- 
sible power  of  life  and  death — what  has  the 
world  invariably  known  of  that? 

The  committee,  in  the  interests  of  protection 
against  the  counter-revolution,  supervised  the 
lists  of  the  delegates  elected  to  the  Provincial 
Soviets,  and  any  delegates  that  seemed  likely 
not  to  go  along  and  be  quiet  were  discovered 
to  be  conspirators  in  disguise  and  promptly 
turned  down.  In  the  spring  of  1918  a  commu- 
nity on  the  Don  elected  to  the  Provincial  Soviet 
two  members  of  the  Social  Revolutionary  party. 
It  appears  that  nothing  else  was  known  against 
them  but  this  was  enough.  The  two  delegates 
were  sent  home  and  the  community  disfran- 
chised. 

Mexico  under  Diaz  showed  nothing  freer 
from  the  prejudices  of  democracy. 

The  various  Commissaries  of  the  People  for 


LIBERTIES   UNDER  THE   NEW   SYSTEM         113 

this  and  that  department  of  government  were 
supposed  to  take  the  place  of  the  ministries 
that  in  the  old  days  functioned  in  charge.  It 
is  to  be  remarked  that  in  this  Dictatorship  of 
the  Proletariat  scarcely  any  of  these  Commis- 
saries from  Lenine  down  were  of  the  working 
class  that  they  were  to  benefit;  none  had  any 
experience  or  fitness  for  the  task  in  hand,  and 
one  at  least,  a  Commissary  of  Justice,  came 
to  be  under  grave  charges  of  worse  than  incom- 
petence. In  such  conditions  it  is  not  astonish- 
ing that  nothing  went  well.  In  a  few  months 
the  simplest  operations  of  the  departments 
seemed  threatened  with  collapse.  No  one  was 
more  disgusted  than  Lenine  himself.  He  said 
that  of  every  one  hundred  so-called  Bolshevics 
he  had  to  work  with  sixty  were  imbeciles,  thirty- 
nine  were  rascals  and  one  was  a  Bolshevic  by 
conviction.*  If  he  was  right  he  could  do  no 
better.  But  the  real  point  was  something  dif- 
ferent. Social  processes  had  become  too  in- 
volved. More  was  required  in  him  that  should 
engineer  them  than  the  fact  that  he  was  in 
favor  of  exterminating  the  bourgeoisie,  and  it 
was  here  that  the  dream  went  first  and  last  to 
its  ending. 
"All  Power  to  the  Soviet!"     The  demon- 

*  Bourtzeflf,  page  40. 


114      BOLSHEVISM  AND  THE   UNITED   STATES 

strators  were  now  in  a  position  to  judge  of  the 
effectiveness  of  that  power.  Nominally,  these 
People's  Commissaries  were  elected  by  the  So- 
viet. In  reality  Soviets  constituted  in  the  man- 
ner I  have  described  amounted  to  no  more  than 
places  of  registry*  for  Lenine's  decrees  and 
no  Soviet  was  in  any  position  to  interfere  with 
the  effective  workings  of  the  Dictatorship. 

Nothing,  in  fact,  interfered  with  that. 
Lenine  seems  to  have  known  very  well  his 
Roman  history  and  to  have  planned  a  state  on 
the  ideas  of  Tiberius  or  Caligula.  The  obse- 
quious functions  of  the  Soviet  duplicated  those 
of  the  Roman  Senate,  the  Red  Guard  dupli- 
cated the  Pretorians,  the  elections  were  simi- 
larly farcical,  the  plea  of  public  safety  that 
justified  the  unlimited  powers  of  the  Com- 
mittee Against  the  Counter-Revolution  was 
exactly  that  on  which  the  Imperators  stood  to 
claim  their  authority.  The  parallel  is  com- 
pleted with  the  fundamental  theory  of  Lenine's 
government.  That  there  should  be  some  show 
and  pretense  of  democracy  and  a  plentiful  use 
of  its  nomenclature  and  yet  the  actual  power 

*It  Is  not  my  phrase.  "The  Soviets,"  says  a  manifesto 
of  the  Russian  Social  Democratic  party,  of  which  Lenine 
was  once  a  leader,  "are  nothing  more  than  registration 
chambers." 


LIBERTIES   UNDER  THE   NEW   SYSTEM         115 

shonld  be  unlimited  in  the  hands  of  the  few 
men  specially  gifted  to  rule  and  to  divert  the 
masses — what  could  more  perfectly  agree  with 
the  philosophy  of  Roman  imperialism?  Even 
the  pretense,  or  conviction,  that  this  arrange- 
ment was  for  the  best  interests  of  those  same 
masses  was  identical.  Lenine  had  been  a  care- 
ful and  laborious  student  of  history.  It  is  a 
safe  conclusion  that  his  Gibbon  and  his  Momm- 
sen  have  been  well  thumbed.  Years  ago,  when 
he  was  unknown  outside  of  Russia,  a  somber 
dreamer  walking  up  and  down  the  banks  of 
the  Volga,  he  never  hesitated  to  express  his 
profound  contempt  for  democracy.  He  is  not 
to  be  accused  of  inconsistency;  when  he  came 
to  be  clothed  with  power  he  was  flawlessly 
loyal  to  that  conviction. 

One  of  the  first  essentials  of  a  dictatorship, 
if  it  is  to  be  of  working  efficiency,  is  that  it 
shall  not  be  hampered  by  expressions  of  a 
hostile  public  opinion.  All  dictators  from  Nero 
to  Louis  Napoleon  have  found  this  to  be  true; 
you  cannot  dictate  in  the  best  form  if  agitators, 
orators  or,  in  these  days,  the  reptile  news- 
papers, are  allowed  to  attack  you.  The  Revo- 
lution created  in  Russia  an  extraordinary 
feeling  for  the  complete  freedom  of  the  press 
and  of  speech.    Such  a  crop  of  newspapers  as 


116       BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

sprang  up  in  Petrograd  in  those  first  free  and 
happy  days  has  never  been  seen  anywhere  else 
on  earth,  and  all  with  the  most  delicious  lack 
of  restraint  in  their  utterances.  "This  is  a 
free  country  now,"  said  the  writers  and 
editors,  and  resented  any  suggestion  of  mod- 
eration, whether  on  the  grounds  of  morals  or 
otherwise.  Russia  was  still  in  a  state  of  war, 
but  when  I  was  in  Petrograd  the  opposition 
press  was  openly  urging  the  soldiers  to  desert 
and  copies  of  Petrograd  journals  containing 
sedition  were  bought  by  the  German  propa- 
ganda and  scattered  through  the  Russian 
trenches,  visibly  increasing  the  discontent  and 
disorder.  I  have  noted  as  an  odd  fact  that  in 
our  country  the  same  persons  that  advocate  a 
similar  state  of  unrestricted  license  for  the 
press  in  time  of  war  advocate  also  Lenine's 
theory  and  practice  of  government,  a  piquant 
little  inconsistency  the  taste  of  which  will  be 
more  perceptible  as  we  proceed. 

Concerning  the  functions  and  limitations  of 
the  press  Nicolai  Lenine  was  under  none  of  the 
hallucinations  that  seemed  to  beset  the  Provi- 
sional Government.  He  knew  the  perils  of 
uncontrolled  utterances  and  how  to  guard 
against  them.  The  new  machinery  of  govern- 
ment,  installed   after   the  Bolshevic   coup   of 


LIBERTIES   UNDER   THE   NEW   SYSTEM         117 

November  7,  1917,  comprised  a  Revolution- 
ary Tribunal  to  take  the  place  of  the  courts, 
which  having  been  created  and  ruled  by 
capitalistic  influence  for  capitalistic  purposes 
were  unsuited  to  the  state  of  emancipation.  On 
March  25  following,  all  the  newspapers  were 
notified  that  the  control  of  the  press  in  Russia 
had  been  given  over  to  this  Tribunal,  Section 
of  Political  Crimes. 

The  decree  conveying  this  news  read  as 
follows : 

The  Revolutionary  Tribunal  of  the  Press. 

1.  Under  the  Revolutionary  Tribunal  is 
created  a  Revolutionary  Tribunal  of  the  Press. 
This  Tribunal  will  have  jurisdiction  of  crimes 
and  offenses  against  the  people  committed  by 
means  of  the  press. 

2.  Crimes  and  offenses  by  means  of  the 
press  are  the  publication  and  circulation  of 
any  false  or  perverted  reports  and  information 
about  events  of  public  life,  in  so  far  as  they 
constitute  an  attempt  upon  the  rights  and  in- 
terests of  the  Revolutionary  people. 

3.  The  Revolutionary  Tribunal  of  the  Press 
consists  of  three  members,  elected  for  a  period 
not  longer  than  three  months  by  the  Soviet  of 


118      BOLSHEVISM  AND  THE  UNITED   STATES 

Workmen's,  Soldiers'  and  Peasants'  Deputies. 
These  members  are  charged  with  the  conduct 
of  the  preliminary  investigation  as  well  as  the 
trial  of  the  case. 

4.  The  following  serve  as  grounds  for  in- 
stituting proceedings:  reports  of  legal  or  ad- 
ministrative institutions,  public  organizations 
or  private  persons. 

5.  The  prosecution  and  defense  are  conducted 
on  the  principles  laid  down  in  the  instructions 
to  the  general  Revolutionary  Tribunal. 

6.  The  sessions  of  the  Revolutionary  Tribunal 
of  the  Press  are  public. 

7.  The  decisions  of  the  Revolutionary  Trib- 
unal of  the  Press  are  final  and  are  not  subject 
to  appeal. 

8.  The  Revolutionary  Tribunal  imposes  the 
following  penalties:  (1)  fine,  (2)  expression  of 
public  censure,  which  with  the  convicted  organ 
of  the  press  brings  to  the  general  knowledge 
in  a  way  indicated  by  the  Tribunal,  (3)  the 
publication  in  a  prominent  place  or  in  a  special 
edition  of  a  denial  of  the  false  report,  (4)  tem- 
porary or  permanent  suppression  of  the  pub- 
lication or  its  exclusion  from  circulation,  (5) 
confiscation  to  national  ownership  of  the 
printing-shop  or  property  of  the  organ  of  the 
press  if  it  belongs  to  the  convicted  parties. 


LIBERTIES   UNDER   THE   NEW   SYSTEM         119 

9.  The  trial  of  an  organ  of  the  press  by  the 
Revolutionary  Tribunal  of  the  Press  does  not 
absolve  the  guilty  persons  from  general  crim- 
inal responsibility. 

As  the  Tribunal  was  the  sole  and  final  judge 
of  what  might  constitute  **an  attempt  upon  the 
rights  and  interests  of  the  Revolutionary 
people,"  and  as  the  Tribunal  was  appointed 
by  the  Lenine  group,  it  will  be  seen  that  here 
was  provided  a  perfect  machinery  to  control 
the  entire  press. 

The  law  was,  moreover,  an  apt  illustration 
of  the  new  style  of  government  in  actual  prac- 
tice. Although  it  was  a  law  directly  affecting 
the  population  in  one  of  its  most  vital  interests, 
it  comes  to  us  in  the  shape  of  a  decree  or 
ukase  and  was  therefore  never  legislation;  the 
population  it  affected  had  never  anything  to 
do  with  the  making  of  it. 

At  that  time  every  political  party,  near 
party  or  faction  in  the  country  had  its  news- 
paper organ  or  organs.  The  Revolutionary 
Tribunal,  Section  of  Political  Crimes,  seems  to 
have  been  a  prompt  and  efficient  body.  I  will 
give  a  few  examples.  It  began  its  supervision 
on  March  25.  The  next  day  a  journal  called 
the  Outre  Rossii,  which  had  printed  something 


120      BOLSHEVISM  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES 

offensive  to  Trotsky,  was  brought  before  the 
Tribunal  and  fined  10,000  roubles.  This  shook 
much  of  the  starch  out  of  the  freedom  of  the 
press  of  which  Russians  had  been  so  proud, 
but  on  the  next  Sunday  a  journal  called  the 
Rousskia  Vedomosty  printed  a  signed  article 
from  a  contributor  in  which  Lenine  and  one 
Natanson  (alias  Bobrov),  a  leader  of  the  Bol- 
shevic  faction  of  the  Social  Revolutionary 
party  were  discussed  as  traitors  to  Russia. 
The  next  day  the  Rousskia  Vedo7nosty  was 
suppressed,  then  arraigned  before  the  Tribunal 
and  fined.* 

The  next  offender  was  no  less  a  person  than 
Martoff,  himself  a  Revolutionist  who  had  taken 
a  prominent  part  in  the  meeting  at  Zimmerwald, 
where  he  had  been  reckoned  as  a  leader  of  the 
Left  or  Radical  group.  He  wrote  something  in 
Vperiod  against  the  Bolshevic  regime  and  was 
promptly  brought  before  the  Tribunal,  Section 
of  Political  Crimes,  and  found  guilty  of  a  crime 
against  the  power  of  the  people.  The  next  day 
appeared  in  some  of  the  newspapers  the  follow- 
ing resolution : 


*La  Y4rit6  sur  les  Bolsheviki.  Documents  and  Notes  of 
a  Witness,  by  Charles  Dumas,  p.  75.  The  citations  are 
from  the  Vperiod,  organ  of  the  Menshevic  Internationalists, 
March  28.  1918. 


LIBERTIES   UNDER  THE   NEW   SYSTEM         121 

**The  Menshevic  group  of  the  Soviet  of 
Workmen's  Deputies  of  Moscow  protests  ener- 
getically against  the  campaign  undertaken  by 
the  Bolshevic  government  against  the  journal 
of  the  workmen  of  the  Social  Democracy, 
Vperiod,  defender  of  the  interests  of  the  work- 
ing class.  The  group  considers  this  campaign 
to  be  an  attack  upon  one  of  the  most  important 
achievements  of  the  Revolution,  the  freedom 
of  the  press.  And  it  deems  this  attempt  to  gag 
the  press  as  all  the  more  dangerous  because 
it  is  made  in  the  name  of  the  working  class 
itself." 

The  Revolutionary  Tribunal,  Section  of  Po- 
litical Crimes,  continued  nevertheless  to  per- 
form its  allotted  labors.  The  Nache  Slovo  was 
condemned  to  pay  a  fine  of  25,000  roubles;  the 
Ranee  Outro,  for  printing  an  article  entitled 
"The  Lettish  Shootings,"  to  which  some  objec- 
tion was  raised,  was  fined  25,000  roubles.  The 
Novosti  Dnia  was  fined  25,000  roubles.  The 
Vetcliernia  Jizn  was  fined  50,000  roubles  and 
suppressed.  The  Vsiegda  Vperiod  was  sup- 
pressed and  forbidden  ever  to  appear  again 
under  another  name.  Only  one  issue  of  it  had 
been  printed  and  that  had  appeared  the  night 
before  the  Tribunal  took  this  action,  so  it  is 


122      BOLSHEVISM  AND  THE  UNITED   STATES 

to  be  supposed  the  Vsiegda  Vperiod  was  strong 
against  the  Dictatorship.  On  the  same  day  that 
this  judgment  was  recorded  one  of  the  organs 
of  the  Social  Revolutionary  party,  the  Plamia, 
was  suppressed  and  forbidden  to  reappear 
under  another  name.  It  had  previously  under- 
gone suppression  as  the  Zemilia  Ivolia,  so  this 
time  it  was  permanently  put  out  of  business. 

Charles  Dumas,  former  Socialist  member  of 
the  French  Chamber,  spent  fifteen  months  in 
Russia,  covering  the  period  in  which  these 
things  happened.  It  is  from  his  record  that  I 
cite  them.  He  points  out  the  interesting  fact 
that  to  a  certain  extent  Lenine's  views  about 
the  proper  conduct  of  the  press  reacted  upon 
himself.  Not  quite  daring  to  adopt  outright  the 
policy  of  suppressing  all  criticism  the  Tribunal 
sought  to  ruin  with  heavy  fines  all  newspapers 
not  of  the  Bolshevic  faith.  The  result  was  that 
scores  of  journals  that  were  the  organs  and 
sometimes  the  property  of  political  factions  of 
workingmen  went  down  under  the  fines  they  had 
to  pay,  and  only  the  newspapers  secretly  sub- 
sidized by  members  of  the  bourgeoisie,  Lenine's 
most  hated  enemy,  could  appear. 

Manifestly  this  was  a  condition  that  could 
not  last  and  after  a  few  weeks  of  it  the  govern- 
ment adopted  a  measure  that  effected  the  result 
at  which  it  aimed.    It  issued  a  decree  forbid- 


LIBERTIES   UNDER   THE   NEW   SYSTEM         123 

ding  the  printing  of  advertisements  in  any  ex- 
cept the  official  journals,  and  I  do  not  see  how 
it  is  possible  to  withhold  the  tribute  of  admi- 
ration from  a  device  so  ably  conceived.  It 
amounted  to  almost  the  last  word  in  press  regu- 
lation, and  thereafter  most  of  the  journals  that 
were  not  official,  heavily  subsidized,  or  thor- 
oughly Bolshevic,  dried  up  and  blew  away,  their 
going  hastened  by  the  suppressing  of  some  that 
showed  a  disposition  to  linger. 

A  small  daily  newspaper  in  the  French  lan- 
guage, Le  Journal  de  Petrograd,  was  sup- 
pressed outright;  its  manager,  Ludovic  Nau- 
deau,  of  whom  Mr.  Dumas  speaks  very  highly, 
was  arrested  and  thrown  into  one  of  the  worst 
of  the  prison  cells,  where  he  suffered  for  months 
isolated  from  any  communication  with  his 
friends.  A  new  publication  called  The  Mir  ap- 
peared in  Moscow,  warmly  welcomed  and  sup- 
ported by  the  Izvestia,  the  official  organ.  The 
men  employed  upon  it  seem  to  have  become  sus- 
picious and  made  inquiries  concerning  the 
source  of  its  funds,  when  they  discovered  that 
the  money  was  furnished  directly  by  the  impe- 
rial chancellory  of  Germany.  Thereupon  the 
staff  quit  and  for  some  days  The  Mir  was  un- 
able to  appear.  Then  it  secured  a  new  staff  and 
resumed  publication.* 

*La  V6rite  sur  Ics  Bolshcvild,  p.  80. 


124      BOLSHEVISM  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES 

On  June  1  the  journal  Velikaia,  of  which  only 
one  number  had  appeared,  was  forbidden  to 
appear  again.  On  June  26  the  Menshevics, 
whose  organ,  the  Nach  Golos,  had  been  sup- 
pressed some  weeks  before,  ventured  out  again 
with  a  newspaper  called  the  Ishra,  which  was 
of  one  day  and  full  of  trouble,  receiving  at  once 
the  official  garrote. 

This  was  the  work  that  went  on  in  every 
part  of  Russia.  On  June  7  the  newspaper 
Rodina  reviewed  the  achievements  in  its  prov- 
ince of  the  press  supervision  of  the  Revolution- 
ary Tribunal,  Section  of  Political  Crimes,  and 
seemed  to  find  that  against  at  least  this  branch 
of  the  new  government  no  charge  of  inefficiency 
could  lie.  It  recorded  that  of  all  the  newspapers 
existing  in  the  province  under  the  former  re- 
gime, only  one,  the  Voronejeski  Telegraph,  was 
still  alive.  Of  the  254  journals  published  in  the 
province  before  the  Revolution,  five  or  six 
were  of  monarchist  sympathies  and  quickly  dis- 
appeared. For  the  rest,  247  had  been  sup- 
pressed by  the  Dictatorship  of  the  Proletariat, 
Revolutionary  Tribunal,  Section  of  Political 
Crimes.  In  the  entire  province  on  that  date, 
June  1,  1918,  there  were  not  ten  independent 
journals. 

About   that   time   a   decree   was   published 


LIBERTIES   UNDER  THE   NEW  SYSTEM         125 

nationalizing  the  sale  of  newspapers  and  Mr. 
Dumas  cites  some  of  its  provisions.  Unauthor- 
ized persons  were  forbidden  to  obtain  news- 
papers for  sale.  Newspaper  dealers  must  be- 
come functionaries  of  the  government  with 
definite  terms  of  appointment. 

**  Article  3.  Subscriptions  to  the  bourgeois 
and  pseudo-Socialist  newspapers  are  sup- 
pressed and  will  not  hereafter  be  accepted  at 
the  post  office.  Issues  of  these  journals  that 
may  be  mailed  will  not  be  delivered  at  their 
destinations. 

"Newspapers  of  the  bourgeoisie  will  be  sub- 
ject to  a  tax  which  may  be  as  great  as  three 
roubles  for  each  number.  Pseudo-Socialist 
journals  such  as  the  Vperiod  and  the  Troud 
Vlast  Narods  [these  were  organs  of  the  Men- 
shevics  and  the  Social  Revolutionists]  will  be 
subject  to  the  same  tax." 

For  candor  this  certainly  left  nothing  to  be 
desired. 

By  a  subsequent  device  every  business  house 
in  Petrograd  was  compelled  to  subscribe  for 
Izvestia,  the  official  organ. 

The  proletariat,  in  whose  behalf  and  for 
whose  betterment  all  these   strange   develop- 


126      BOLSHEVISM  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES 

ments  were  excused,  did  not  seem  always  to 
regard  them  with  enthusiasm.  Not  long  after 
the  last  decree  regarding  the  control  of  the 
press,  a  meeting  of  workmen's  delegates  in  Pet- 
rograd,  said  to  represent  more  than  one  hun- 
dred thousand  organized  workers,  passed 
unanimously  a  resolution  protesting  against  the 
policy  of  gag  that  the  government  had  adopted. 
Never,  said  the  resolution,  had  there  been  a 
more  brutal  repression,  and  never  had  there 
been  such  need  of  a  free  and  honest  press  as 
in  these  critical  days  ' '  to  struggle  with  the  most 
desperate  resolution  now  when  the  country,  the 
Revolution  and  the  working  class  itself  are 
threatened  with  total  destruction.  The  workers 
of  Petrograd  are  abandoned  to  their  fate,  with- 
out the  power  to  sustain  their  cause,  since  they 
are  not  allowed  the  liberty  of  their  press." 

"In  view  of  these  considerations,  we  workers 
of  Petrograd  address  a  proclamation  and  an 
appeal  to  the  proletariat  of  Russia  to  undertake 
without  delay  the  struggle  against  this  decree 
of  the  government  against  press  liberty.  And 
we  propose  to  take  up  this  question  at  all  our 
meetings  and  to  send  delegates  to  Smolney  [the 
Bolshevic  headquarters]  and  to  the  associations 
of  the  press  to  urge  our  protest.   .    .    . 


LIBERTIES   UNDER  THE   NEW  SYSTEM         127 

"The  working  class  must  know  the  truth,  the 
whole  truth  and  nothing  but  the  truth." 

It  seems  difficult  to  imagine  how  such  a  result 
was  to  be  achieved  through  the  journals  that 
were  allowed  to  survive  after  the  passing  of 
these  steam  rollers.  They  were  either  edited 
outright  in  the  interest  of  the  Dictatorship  or 
so  closely  censored  that  not  a  line  discordant 
with  the  theories  of  Bolshevism  could  be  pub- 
lished. This  was  the  case  even  with  the  semi- 
official journals  and  some  of  the  undisguised 
organs.  I  have  before  me  now  a  copy  of  one 
of  these  newspapers  after  the  censor  had  been 
over  it,  and  the  space  occupied  by  the  matter 
he  cut  out  of  the  type  is  greater  than  the  matter 
he  allowed  to  appear.  Many  of  the  ardent  souls 
in  the  United  States  that  sincerely  support  Bol- 
shevism believe  that  it  represents  an  advance 
in  human  liberty  far  greater  than  anything  this 
country,  with  which  they  are  wholly  dissatis- 
fied, has  ever  known.  May  I  venture  in  passing 
to  remind  these  well-meaning  persons  that  at 
the  time  when  this  newspaper  I  have  before  me 
was  printed,  the  inferior  United  States,  a  coun- 
try at  war,  had  no  censorship,  and  superior 
Bolshevic  Russia,  with  anti-press  laws  that  in 
severity  far  exceeded  anything  the  Czar  ever 


128      BOLSHEVISM   AND  THE   UNITED   STATES 

enacted,  and  with  a  censor  thus  indefatigably 
busy,  was,  after  Brest-Litovsk,  a  nation  at 
peace? 

The  right  of  free  speech  is  the  right  with 
which  all  other  rights  are  preserved.  Having 
abolished  a  free  press  the  Extraordinary  Com- 
mittee and  the  Revolutionary  Tribunal,  Section 
of  Political  Crimes,  had  little  difficulty  in  sup- 
pressing the  right  of  free  assembly.  The  North- 
ern Commune  of  September  13  publishes  the 
decree  of  Zinoviev,  one  of  Lenine's  most  active 
and  famous  assistants,  covering  this  matter. 
Decrees,  it  may  be  observed,  had  now  openly 
taken  the  place  of  any  action  by  the  National 
Soviet.  These  are  the  chief  points  in  Zinoviev 's 
law  of  assembly: 

1.  All  societies,  unions,  and  associations — 
political,  economic,  artistic,  religious,  etc. — 
formed  on  the  territory  of  the  Union  of  the 
Commune  of  the  Northern  Region  must  be 
registered  at  the  corresponding  Soviets  or  Com- 
mittees of  the  Village  Poor. 

2.  The  constitution  of  the  union  or  society,  a 
list  of  founders  and  members  of  the  committee, 
with  names  and  addresses,  and  a  list  of  all 
members,  with  their  names  and  addresses,  must 
be  submitted  at  registration. 

3.  All  books,  minutes,  etc.,  must  always  be 


LIBERTIES   UNDER   THE   NEW   SYSTEM         129 

kept  at  the  disposal  of  representatives  of  the 
Soviet  power  for  purposes  of  revision. 

4.  Three  days'  notice  must  be  given  to  the 
Soviet,  or  to  the  Committee  of  the  Village  Poor, 
of  all  public  and  private  meetings. 

5.  All  meetings  must  be  open  to  the  represen- 
tatives of  the  Soviet  power — ^viz.,  the  represen- 
tatives of  the  Central  and  District  Soviet,  the 
Committee  of  the  Poor,  and  the  Kommandatur 
of  the  Revolutionary  Secret  Police  Force 
[Okhrana]. 

6.  Unions  and  societies  which  do  not  comply 
with  those  regulations  will  be  regarded  as 
counter-revolutionary  organizations,  and  prose- 
cuted. 

A  Russian  writer  observes  about  this  that 
those  familiar  with  European  affairs  will  have 
no  difficulty  in  recognizing  it,  for  it  is  simply 
the  old  Prussian  law  of  public  meetings  trans- 
ferred to  Russia  with  only  such  changes  as  were 
necessary  to  substitute  the  **  Committees  of  the 
Poor"  for  the  Royal  police.  It  is  thus  that  we 
combat  the  imperialism  of  which  so  many  good 
Americans  professed  alarm  when  the  United 
States  entered  the  war. 

Gorky's  Novaia  Jizn  expressed  some  opinion 
to  the  effect  that  the  ruthless  suppression  of  the 
Socialist  opposition  press,  suppression  of  meet- 


130      BOLSHEVISM  AND  THE   UNITED   STATES 

ings  and  the  like  had  gone  pretty  far  and 
seemed  to  doubt  whether  the  tyranny  under 
the  Czar  were  not  liberty  by  comparison.  But 
the  Novaia  Jizn  did  not  long  survive  these  and 
other  candid  utterances. 

Sometimes  the  meetings  were  dispersed; 
sometimes,  as  in  an  internationally  conspicuous 
case  I  am  to  tell  hereafter,  those  participating 
in  the  undesirable  assembly  were  locked  up  and 
held  incommunicado.  The  regulation  adopted 
by  the  Extraordinary  Committee  on  this  subject 
was  terse  but  comprehensive.    It  read : 

**  Any  person  that  shall  speak  against  the  rule 
of  the  Soviets  shall  be  brought  before  the  Revo- 
lutionary Tribunal." 

As  to  what  he  was  likely  to  experience  there 
we  can  put  aside  all  newspaper  reports  and 
travelers'  tales  and  accept  only  the  decree  on 
the  subject  issued  by  Uritsky,  the  president  of 
the  Extraordinary  Committee : 

**1.  The  Committee  will  not  furnish  any  in- 
formation concerning  its  researches  or  concern- 
ing the  arrests  that  it  may  make.  Persons  that 
insist  upon  obtaining  such  information  will  be 
arrested. 


I 


LIBERTIES  UNDER  THE   NEW   SYSTEM         131 

*'2.  While  the  inquiry  is  on  no  person  will  be 
allowed  to  see  the  prisoners. 

"3.  At  the  end  of  the  inquiry  brief  informa- 
tion will  be  given  to  the  newspapers  on  each 
affair  and  each  person  arrested,  to  discourage 
arrests  through  error  or  malice. 

"4.  Persons  known  to  have  been  guilty  of 
attempts  to  corrupt  the  members  of  the  Com- 
mittee or  their  assistants  will  incur  the  most 
severe  penalties  and  can  even  be  shot. 

*'5.  For  every  attempted  act  of  violence 
against  the  members  of  the  Committee  or  its 
assistants  the  assailants  will  be  shot  instantly." 

Not  upon  conviction  or  after  inquiry  or  pro- 
ceedings to  make  sure  there  is  no  mistake  in 
identity,  but  at  once  and  on  the  spot.  I  do  not 
know  how  a  wider  opportunity  could  be  given 
to  malice,  personal  revenge  or  the  madness  of 
blood  thirst. 

And  again,  we  inquired  in  an  earlier  chapter 
concerning  the  meaning  of  that  phrase,  "com- 
pulsory labor."  The  official  Bolshevic  press 
now  furnishes  us  with  answer  complete  and 
clear.  The  Izvestia  of  October  19  prints  this, 
a  despatch  from  Orel: 

"To-day  the  Orel  bourgeoisie  began  compul- 


132       BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

sory  work  to  which  it  was  made  liable.  Parties 
of  the  bourgeoisie,  thus  made  to  work,  are  clean- 
ing the  streets  and  squares  from  rubbish  and 
dirt/' 

The  Prahvda  of  October  6  contains  this: 

**Chembar. — The  bourgeoisie  put  to  compul- 
sory work  is  repairing  the  pavements  and 
the  roads." 

It  appears  that  in  Petrograd  the  intellectuals, 
including  former  professors  in  the  universities, 
were  set  to  work  at  tasks  purposely  and  need- 
lessly made  degrading  and  filthy.  Zinoviev, 
Lenine's  lieutenant,  was  moved  by  these  things 
to  malicious  mirth.  In  a  speech  at  Moscow  he 
invited  his  hearers  to  come  to  Petrograd  to  see 
these  employments.  The  Prahvda  reports  him 
as  saying:  "I  wish  you  could  see  how  well  they 
unload  coal  on  the  Neva  and  clean  the  bar- 
racks. '  * 

Most  assuredly  there  is  no  good  reason  why 
the  arduous  and  repulsive  toil  requisite  for 
social  existence  should  be  reserved  for  any  one 
class,  but  the  plight  of  the  bourgeoisie  is  not 
the  point  here.  The  point  is  that  the  labor, 
according  to  the  official  press,  is  performed 
without  compensation  and  at  the  point  of  rifles. 


LIBERTIES   UNDER   THE   NEW   SYSTEM         133 

That  is  to  say,  slavery  in  its  plainest,  baldest 
terms. 

The  plea  on  which  this  is  defended  is  that 
in  former  days  the  state  of  the  workers  was 
of  practical  slavery. 

Admitting  this  to  be  true,  three  facts  occur 
instantly  to  the  sane  mind: 

1.  The  unfortunate  bourgeoisie  that  now 
work  under  the  rifle  in  the  latrines  and  cess- 
pools of  Petrograd  had  not  the  least  responsi- 
bility for  the  system  that  in  the  old  days  used 
to  oppress  the  workers. 

2.  If  it  is  right  for  superior  force  to  enslave 
the  bourgeoisie  now  it  was  right  for  superior 
force  to  enslave  the  workers  then. 

3.  If  a  system  of  society  thus  founded  upon 
and  openly  endorsing  the  most  ignoble  and 
savage  ideals  of  revenge  could  endure,  human 
nature  would  be  untrue  to  itself  and  all  the 
conclusions  of  history  would  be  falsified. 

But  it  is  plain  that  what  we  have  here  is  a 
startling  reversion  to  the  systems  and  instincts 
of  primitive  man.  Instead  of  being  in  any  way 
new  the  essence  of  it  is  a  leap  into  the  back- 
ward abysm  of  time.  Since  men  began  to  have 
newspapers  and  books,  schools  and  pictures, 
they  have  not  in  the  mass  thrown  away  all 
other  guidance  than  the  promptings  of  primitive 


134      BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

passions.  That  this  manifestation  should  have 
come  now  is  of  intense  interest  to  anthropolo- 
gists but  makes  nothing  for  precept  or  example 
to  the  rest  of  mankind. 

Looking  over  these  acts  that  take  away  the 
right  of  free  utterance,  of  free  assembly,  of 
free  labor  and  the  rest,  it  is  clear  that  there 
is  no  difference  between  a  Dictatorship  of  the 
Proletariat  and  any  other  kind  of  a  dictator- 
ship. I  do  not  know  why  any  one  should  think 
or  imagine  or  dream  there  was,  is,  or  could  be, 
but  that  idea  seems  to  have  been  spread  in  some 
quarters.  We  could  no  more  have  a  dictator- 
ship without  giving  up  everything  man  has 
gained  for  his  freedom  than  we  could  reverse 
the  law  of  gravitation. 

For  a  time,  it  is  true,  some  measure  of  pros- 
perity attended  these  delvings  backward  into 
pre-historic  society.  But  with  all  his  wisdom 
and  shrewdness  it  seems  likely  that  Lenine 
fumbled  his  work  when  he  rolled  the  chariot 
of  the  Revolutionary  Tribunal  over  every  organ 
of  criticism  and  opposition.  In  the  long  run, 
nothing  succeeds  like  the  truth.  Indeed,  the 
practice  of  lying  seems  much  like  sailing  a 
pirate  ship.  So  long  as  you  are  not  found  out 
all  goes  well,  but  the  uncomfortable  fact  is  that 
you  have  to  come  to  port  sooner  or  later;  you 


LIBERTIES   UNDER   THE   NEW   SYSTEM         135 

cannot  keep  at  sea  always.  It  was  one  of  the 
fundamental  theories  of  the  Lenine  government 
that  Germany  was  certain  to  win  the  war.  If 
anything  seemed  not  to  agree  with  this  theory, 
so  much  the  worse  for  that  piece  of  news — in 
the  view  of  the  Bolshevic  censor.  So  late  as 
July,  1918,  when  the  German  line  was  being 
smashed  backward  day  after  day  and  the  end 
was  in  sight  to  all  men  that  would  look,  Lenine 
addressed  the  people  of  Russia  in  an  article  in 
the  official  Izvestia  in  which  he  assured  them 
that  the  French  army,  having  been  converted 
to  Bolshevism,  was  about  to  refuse  to  carry 
the  war  any  farther  and  had  decided  to  turn 
its  arms  against  its  own  government.  The  day 
came  at  last  when  the  truth  could  no  longer 
be  suppressed,  when  the  people  had  to  know 
that  Germany  was  crushed,  the  Allied  army 
was  on  the  Rhine,  and  Paris,  London  and  New 
York  were  celebrating  the  greatest  victory  in 
history.  The  disclosure  could  not  be  otherwise 
than  a  deadly  blow  at  Lenine 's  prestige.  Not 
in  Russia  nor  anywhere  else  will  the  spheres 
be  long  shaken  by  a  prophet  that  continually 
gets  on  the  wrong  side  of  the  event. 


CHAPTER  VI 

BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   PEASANTS 

Everything  else  in  Russia  must  come  back  at 
some  time  to  the  land  question. 

When  the  serfs  were  freed  in  1861  the  land 
was  owned  chiefly  in  great  estates;  the  land- 
owners, whether  nobles,  gentry  or  otherwise, 
were  a  privileged  class;  and  the  peasants  were 
their  chattels.  To  provide  the  freedmen  with 
a  chance  to  make  a  living  the  government  pur- 
chased for  them  a  great  deal  of  the  land  on 
which  they  had  worked  and  arranged  for  them 
to  repay  the  purchase  on  easy  terms. 

In  the  great  majority  of  instances,  the  land 
thus  bought  was  held  in  common  by  all  the 
dwellers  in  each  village  that  had  been  serfs, 
and  the  farms  were  allotted  for  cultivation, 
either  by  vote  or  drawing  of  lots  or  some  other 
system  that  would  insure  the  rotation  of  the 
most  desirable  farms. 

But  this  method  had  unforeseen  and  fatal 
defects.     First,    the    farming    population    in- 

136 


BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   PEASANTS  137 

creased,  but  there  were  no  more  fields  to  be 
divided  among  the  additions.  Second,  else- 
where agriculture  improved  and  began  to  be 
prosecuted  upon  a  much  larger  scale  than 
had  ever  been  known,  but  the  fields  under 
the  Russian  system  were  too  small  and  the 
farmers  too  poor  to  allow  of  the  use  of  im- 
proved machinery  and  enlarged  methods.  Yet 
as  the  population  of  the  whole  country,  city  as 
well  as  village,  multiplied,  the  demand  for  in- 
creased production  became  imperative,  and 
Russia  was  being  slowly  strangled  by  a  land 
system  beautiful  in  theory  but  impossible  in 
modern  practice. 

But  while  the  peasants  had  not  enough  land 
to  keep  themselves  decently  alive  there  was 
no  end  of  untilled  land  in  Russia.  The  nobles 
still  held  great  estates;  the  Czar  had  the 
equivalent  of  a  kingdom  in  the  land  he  never 
used  nor  looked  at  but  still  was  called  his.  As 
the  economic  pressure  increased  upon  the 
peasants  so  grew  the  bitterness  of  their  com- 
plaints. All  men  that  studied  the  question 
knew  well  enough  that  the  existing  condition 
was  impossible  and  could  not  last.  The  plain 
remedy  was  to  divide  the  private  estates  and 
the  Cro-wTi  lands.  This  had  long  been  a  cardinal 
doctrine  among  those  stern  old  Revolutionists 


138      BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

that  at  the  peril  of  their  lives  had  labored 
among  the  peasants  to  spread  the  love  and  hope 
of  liberty.  When  the  Revolution  of  March, 
1917,  came  to  the  freeing  of  Russia  the  peasants 
expected  the  realization  of  the  reformers' 
theories.  "Land  and  Liberty!"  and  "Liberty 
and  Land!"  were  the  favorite  texts  that  in  the 
rural  regions  adorned  the  banners  of  the  en- 
franchised. 

The  thing  was  not  so  easy  as  it  seemed. 
While  on  the  maps  and  in  the  statistical  re- 
ports there  were  vast  areas  of  untilled  land 
in  Russia,  this  was  in  fact  for  the  most  part 
either  forest  or  swamp  land,  or  it  lay  at  such 
a  distance  from  any  railroad  or  other  means 
of  communication  that  it  was  practically  worth- 
less to  the  farmer. 

The  Social  Revolutionary  party,  which  con- 
tained many  of  the  best  minds  in  Russia,  in- 
cluding Kerensky,  Catherine  Breshkowskaya, 
and  Marie  Spirodonovo,  had  made  a  study  of 
this  problem  and  worked  out  what  was,  in  fact, 
the  only  practical  solution.  It  proposed  that 
the  government  should  first  undertake  to  re- 
claim the  swamp  lands,  to  clear  the  forests  and 
to  extend  the  railroads  and  highways  into  the 
remote  regions  so  as  to  make  the  lands  ac- 
cessible for  settlement.     In  the  meantime  the 


BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE    PEASANTS  139 

government  should  take  up  the  education  of 
the  peasants  so  that  they  could  make  the  most 
of  what  lands  they  had  until  the  others  should 
be  available.  AVhen  the  Kerensky  government 
came  into  power  it  adopted  this  policy  and  so 
far  as  I  could  judge,  when  I  w^as  in  Russia,  had 
sincere  purpose  to  carry  it  out. 

If  it  had  been  able  to  do  so  it  would  have 
saved  Russia. 

But  the  German  propagandists,  who  knew 
the  Russian  land  situation  perfectly,  as  they 
knew  whatever  else  was  to  their  advantage, 
had  been  playing  adroitly  on  the  feelings  and 
appetites  of  the  peasants.  It  was  they  that 
printed  and  scattered  along  the  Russian  front 
those  handbills  containing  the  spurious  news 
that  the  peasant's  land  troubles  were  over. 
The  long  expected  division  of  the  land  was 
about  to  take  place,  said  this  announcement; 
the  great  estates  and  the  Czar's  holdings  were 
about  to  be  distributed,  but  only  to  those  that 
were  on  the  spot.  Whoever  wished  to  get  his 
share  must  hasten  home  at  once.  The  bulk 
of  the  Russian  army  was  composed  of  peasants. 
When  they  heard  of  this  news,  which  ap- 
parently was  official,  hundreds  of  thousands 
dropped  their  guns  and  rushed  home.  They 
arrived  to  find  they  had  been  deluded  and  their 


140       BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

resentment  often  turned  against  the  govern- 
ment that  equally  with  themselves  had  been 
victimized  by  the  forgery. 

The  demand  for  land  relief  steadily  in- 
creased, and  the  short-lived  Constituent  As- 
sembly, whose  fate  sealed  the  death  of  Russia's 
present  chances  for  regeneration,  had  pre- 
pared a  plan  unconventional  enough  to  suit 
almost  any  radical.  Just  before  the  Assembly 
was  dispersed,  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet,  it  had 
passed  a  series  of  resolutions  on  the  land  ques- 
tion declaring  that  the  right  to  the  private 
ownership  of  land  within  the  boundaries  of  the 
Russian  republic  was  abolished  forever;  that 
all  such  land  with  all  mines,  forests  and  waters 
was  become  the  property  of  the  nation;  that  the 
use  of  all  such  land,  mines,  forests  and  waters 
was  free  to  all  citizens  of  the  Republic  under 
the  restrictions  to  be  adopted  by  the  central 
and  local  governments;  that  the  purpose  of 
such  restrictions  must  be  in  the  interest  of 
utilization.  It  even  declared  that  all  land, 
mines,  forests  and  waters  at  that  time  owned 
or  possessed  by  individuals,  associations  or 
corporations  should  be  confiscated  without  com- 
pensation. 

When  the  Constituent  Assembly  was  dis- 
solved this  plan  went  with  it.    Lenine,  there- 


BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   PEASANTS  141 

fore,  was  left  facing  a  serious  problem.  He 
despised  the  peasants  and  always  said  so  with- 
out the  least  hesitation,  but  they  were  never- 
theless the  great  majority  of  the  people  of 
Russia.  Even  when  they  had  been  disarmed 
they  must  still  be  an  element  of  doubt  and 
trouble.  So  far  they  had  shown  only  hostility 
to  the  Bolshevic  idea.  They  were  now  clamor- 
ing for  something  to  take  the  place  of  the  land 
policy  favored  by  the  Constituent  Assembly. 
Lenine  therefore  announced  his  solution  of  the 
whole  land  problem.  It  was  short,  simple, 
vivid.  "Go  and  take  the  land,"  he  said,  "it 
belongs  to  you."  Instantly  a  wild  scramble 
began  for  the  private  estates.  Not  understand- 
ing what  was  really  meant  and  really  involved, 
many  persons,  peasant  and  otherwise,  that  had 
not  been  enthusiastic  supporters  of  Lenine 
turned  to  him  now;  among  them  Marie  Spiro- 
donovo,  the  most  popular  and  influential 
woman  in  Russia.  Slie  declared  that  the  day 
the  land  was  turned  over  to  the  peasants 
meant  Paradise  for  Russia.  She  was  later  to 
entertain  a  very  different  view  of  this  Paradise. 
For  all  his  wonderful  cleverness  and  really 
excellent  mind,  Lenine  had  made  the  greatest 
misstep  of  his  career.  I  cannot  believe  he  was 
not  fully  aware  of  the  facts,  but  how  any  one 


142      BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

that  knew  them  could  have  gone  so  far  astray 
about  them  is  wholly  mysterious.  The  peas- 
ants' rush  for  the  land  was  brief  and  bloody. 
They  descended  upon  the  great  landowners, 
dispossessed  them,  killed  them  if  they  made 
the  slightest  resistance,  and  mastered  their 
property.  In  hundreds  of  places  civil  war 
attended  the  process.  Say,  for  instance,  that 
a  noble  or  landed  proprietor  had  an  estate  near 
one  of  the  peasants'  villages.  Before  their 
eyes  lay  some  of  the  land  they  had  so  long 
coveted.  A  party  from  this  village  would  pro- 
ceed at  night  to  the  dwelling  of  the  owner,  drive 
him  forth  or  kill  him  and  take  possession  of 
the  estate.  But  the  people  of  another  village 
about  the  same  distance  away  had  likewise 
planned  to  annex  this  same  estate  and  sent  an 
expedition  of  their  own,  perchance  upon  the 
self-same  night,  to  seize  it.  Battle  followed 
between  the  two  forces,  sometimes  lasting  days 
and  attended  with  shocking  scenes.  Often  the 
buildings  of  the  estate  in  dispute  were  burned; 
sometimes  whole  villages  were  destroyed; 
sometimes  after  a  village  had  seized  and 
divided  an  estate  a  larger  village  laid  claim  to 
it  and  the  only  result  was  another  war. 

When  all  was  over  the  peasants  came  upon 
the  fact  that  the  prize  they  thought  they  had 


BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE    PEASANTS  143 

■won  was  illusive.  It  was  too  small  to  change 
their  condition  or  ease  the  burden  of  their  com- 
plaint. Lenine  had  told  them  that  the  land  to 
be  divided  among  them  amounted  to  twenty  per 
cent,  of  their  existing  holdings.  It  was  nothing 
like  that  amount.  This  is  the  most  remarkable 
fact  of  all.  The  dullest  of  cheap  politicians 
knows  too  much  to  make  promises  to  the  people 
that  he  cannot  fulfill.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
comparatively  little  land  made  up  the  peasants' 
prize.  A  great  deal  of  it  had  been  already 
seized.  What  was  left  fell  far  short  of  the 
expectations  of  the  peasants,  and  the  result 
was  in  the  end  only  an  increased  dissatisfac- 
tion. 

Lenine 's  plan,  furthermore,  had  encountered 
the  stubborn  fact  of  which  I  have  spoken  be- 
fore, that  while  in  the  surveys  and  the  books 
there  is  an  immense  amount  of  untilled  land 
in  Russia  there  is  very  little  that  at  present  is 
susceptible  of  being  tilled.  That  he,  one  of  the 
greatest  of  Russian  economists,  did  not  know 
all  of  this  is  impossible.  He  must  have  known 
it  better  than  any  other  man  in  Russia.  To 
offer  starving  peasants  some  square  miles  of 
swamp  or  forest  was  but  to  insure  their  revolt 
so  soon  as  they  understood  the  trickery  and 
could  lay  hands  upon  any  kind  of  weapons. 


144      BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

Most  of  the  vacant  land  was  in  Northern  Rus- 
sia, where  there  were  the  fewest  railroads  and 
the  bad  wagon  roads  were  at  their  worst. 
What  should  a  peasant  do  in  that  vast  solitude, 
even  supposing  he  could  get  to  it?  Forty  miles 
from  a  railroad  is  about  as  far  as  one  can 
venture  if  one  intends  to  practise  agriculture 
for  any  purpose  but  that  of  amusement.  In- 
deed, forty  miles  in  Russia  are  almost  pro- 
hibitive, what  with  the  bad  roads  and  the 
notoriously  inferior  quality  of  the  horses.  The 
spectacle  of  the  poor  little  Russian  horses  try- 
ing to  drag  a  cart  forty  miles  over  the  moun- 
tainous ruts  and  through  the  sloughs  that 
make  up  a  Russian  highway  would  be  just 
occasion  for  the  interference  of  th6  Bergh 
Society.  Few  of  the  peasants  have  more 
than  one  of  the  stunted  beasts.  Lenine  himself 
has  defined  a  rich  peasant  as  one  that  has  two 
horses.  If,  then,  his  plan  had  any  meaning  for 
any  peasants  it  was  only  for  those  already 
rich,  and  this  alone  would  to  the  reflective 
mind  have  been  enough  to  kill  such  a  device. 
When  we  add  now  the  fact  that  while  most 
of  the  land  was  in  Northern  Russia  most  of  the 
peasants  Lenine  wanted  to  win  were  in  South- 
ern and  Central  Russia,  and  even  if  the  land 
in  Northern  Russia  had  been  within  hauling 


BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   PEASANTS  145 

distance  of  a  railroad  tlie  peasant  in  Southern 
Russia  could  never  get  to  it,  there  seems  left 
no  rational  explanation  of  a  step  that  pro- 
duced great  and  always  increasing  trouble 
and  foreshadowed  nothing  but  ruin.  I  can 
only  suppose  in  justice  to  a  mind  so  powerful 
and  original  that  he  had  some  other  purpose 
that  has  never  been  disclosed  and  for  the  sake 
of  which  he  was  willing  to  risk  even  the  dis- 
aster of  a  break  with  the  peasants. 

Similarly  as  to  the  railroads  it  is  not  to  be 
believed  that  the  leading  economist  of  Russia 
did  not  know  their  pivotal  importance  to  the 
life  of  the  country.  He  must  have  known  as 
well  that  they  were  breaking  down  and  their 
wrecking  meant  the  starvation  of  a  large  part 
of  the  population;  but  he  did  nothing  to  meet 
this  emergency.  Transportation  went  to  ruin 
with  that  other  necessary  adjunct  of  modern 
life,  a  monetary  system.  "The  most  practical 
man  in  Russia,"  some  admirers  have  called 
him.  Here,  at  least,  John-a-Dreams  could  have 
done  no  worse. 

A  year  after  the  forcible  dissolution  of  the 
Constituent  Assembly  the  peasants  were  almost 
solidly  against  the  Lenine  govermuent.  "Go 
and  take  the  land,  it  is  yours!"  had  fully  re- 
acted upon  the  head  of  its  originator.    Those 


146      BOLSHEVISM  AND  THE   UNITED   STATES 

that  had  secured  land  under  this  simple  ukase 
had  been  transformed  into  landed  proprietors 
who  now  demanded  a  stable  and  conservative 
government  that  they  might  be  protected  in 
their  holdings.  Their  demand  was  not  for  any 
more  experiments  with  a  Dictatorship  of  the 
Proletariat,  but  for  a  government  that  would 
give  them  title  deeds  to  their  possessions  and 
then  defend  them  therein.  What  Lenine  had 
created  by  his  land  policy  was  not  a  body  of 
peasant  supporters  but  two  bodies  of  peasant 
opponents.  One  having,  thanks  to  his  act, 
secured  land  now  swelled  that  bourgeoisie  he 
hated  and  wished  to  destroy;  and  the  other, 
having  been  unable  to  secure  any  land,  was 
bitterly  and  implacably  incensed. 

Other  causes  had  come  in  to  multiply  the 
peasant's  discontent.  There  had  been  an  in- 
flation of  the  currency  beyond  anything  ever 
dreamed  of  even  in  the  fairy  land  of  finance. 
Of  this  I  am  to  speak  in  detail  in  another 
chapter,  but  as  to  the  peasants  I  need  no  more 
than  to  point  out  this  fact  that  while  the  ex- 
change value  of  the  rouble,  under  inflation  and 
the  extraordinary  financiering  of  the  Bolshevic 
government,  had  declined  to  ten  cents  on  the 
dollar,  the  prices  the  farmer  received  for  his 
produce  had  not  increased  in  any  like  propor- 


BOLSHEVISM    AND   THE    PEASANTS  147 

tion.  The  brunt  of  the  economic  burden  there- 
fore rested  upon  him,  as  so  often  it  does. 
Before  there  had  been  a  full  year  of  Bolshevic 
rule  the  peasants,  wherever  they  dared,  refused 
to  take  the  paper  rouble  at  all.  In  some 
localities  it  circulated  by  weight.  "Why 
should  I  take  any  more  of  that  paper?"  asked 
one  farmer.  "I  cannot  find  room  for  it;"  and 
he  exhibited  a  pile  of  roubles  that  weighed 
several  pounds.  At  the  country  stores  some 
commodities  once  in  daily  use  now  sold  weight 
for  weight  in  roubles.  All  paper,  for  there  was 
no  other  money.  Everything  else  had  disap- 
peared long  before. 

Meantime  Petrograd  and  Moscow  were 
starving.  What  would  have  relieved  them  was 
the  repairing  of  the  railroad  system.  The  gov- 
ernment being  incapable  of  this  seems  to  have 
been  able  to  devise  nothing  but  to  snatch  by 
force  the  grain  the  farmers  were  supposed  to 
have.  0.n  May  30,  1918,  the  Council  of  People's 
Commissaries  issued  the  following  manifesto: 

"The  Central  Executive  Committee  has 
ordered  the  Soviets  of  Moscow  and  Petrograd 
to  mobilize  10,000  workers,  to  arm  them  and 
to  equip  them  for  a  campaign  for  the  conquest 
of  wheat  from  the  rapacious   and  the   mon- 


148      BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

opolists.  This  order  must  be  put  into  operation 
within  a  week.  Every  worker  called  to  take  up 
arms  must  perform  his  duty  without  a  mur- 
mur." 

Mr.  Dumas  quotes  from  Maxim  Gorky's 
newspaper,  the  Novaia  Jizn,  the  following  com- 
ment on  this  proceeding: 

"The  war  is  declared,  the  city  against  the 
country,  a  war  that  allows  an  infamous  propa- 
ganda to  say  that  the  worker  is  to  snatch  his 
last  morsel  of  bread  from  the  half-starved 
peasant  and  to  give  him  in  return  nothing  but 
Communist  bullets  and  monetary  emblems 
without  value.  Cruel  war  is  declared,  and  what 
is  the  more  terrible,  a  war  without  an  aim.  The 
granaries  of  Eussia  are  outside  of  the  Com- 
munistic Paradise  but  rural  Russia  suffers  as 
much  from  famine  as  urban  Russia. 

*'We  are  profoundly  persuaded — and  Lenine 
and  many  of  the  intelligent  Bolshevics  know 
this  very  well — that  to  collect  wheat  through 
these  methods  that  recall  in  a  manner  so  strik- 
ing those  employed  by  General  Eichorn  [a 
Prussian  general  of  enduring  memory  for 
cruelty]  in  Ukrainia,  will  never  solve  the  food 
crisis.    They  know  that  the  return  to  democ- 


BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   PEASANTS  149 

racy  and  the  work  of  the  local  autonomies  will 
give  the  best  results,  and  meantime  they  have 
taken  this  decisive  step  on  the  road  to  folly.'' 

The  article  was  entitled  *'The  Policy  of 
Despair."  It  appeared  a  short  time  before  the 
newspaper  was  suppressed. 

To  assist  in  the  campaign  against  the  peasant, 
local  bodies  were  formed  called  Committees  of 
the  Poor,  whose  business  was  to  search  the 
farmers'  barns  for  grain  and  to  see  if  any 
farmers  were  occupying  too  much  land.  The 
operations  of  these  committees,  which  were 
thus  invested  with  all  the  powers  of  the  hated 
spies  of  old  time,  produced  bitter  feeling  among 
the  peasants  but  apparently  little  grain.  Essen- 
tially, the  entire  campaign  was  a  failure.  The 
famine  in  the  cities  was  not  relieved,  but  the 
work  of  the  Ked  Guards  in  the  country  speedily 
justified  the  worst  misgivings  of  Novaia  Jizn. 
Some  of  the  results  showed  in  strong  relief 
the  fatal  absurdity  of  such  a  policy.  The  Red 
Guards  established  a  rule  that  each  individual 
was  to  be  allowed  twelve  poods  a  year  (480 
pounds)  of  produce  of  all  kinds,  and  the  rest 
was  to  be  commandeered  for  the  government. 
But  the  twelve  poods  included  fodder  for  the 
live  stock,  seed  for  the  next  planting  and  the 


150      BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

surplus  by  the  sale  of  which  the  farmer  was  able 
to  secure  the  things  he  did  not  grow.  The  rule 
worked  great  hardship,*  and  in  the  end  de- 
feated itself.  Many  farmers  refused  to  plant 
more  seed  than  would  produce  the  twelve  poods 
allowed  for  each  member  of  his  household. 
Others  declared  that  as  they  would  upon  such 
an  allowance  be  without  seed  grain  by  the  fol- 
lowing spring  they  would  not  plant  at  all. 

Years  before,  discerning  men  had  seen 
plainly  that  the  agricultural  regeneration  of 
Russia  was  becoming  a  world  problem.  In 
some  way,  production  must  be  enormously  in- 

*The  peasants  are  now  confronted  with  new  cares.  By 
their  new  experience  they  have  become  convinced  that  the 
seizure  of  land  in  no  way  assures  them  food  and  a  peaceful 
existence.  Instead  of  the  old-time  police,  there  have  ap- 
peared their  more  terrible  successors — the  Bolshevic  com- 
missaries. The  "Committees  of  the  Poorest  Peasants"  rob 
their  better-off  neighbors.  "Food,"  "Punitive,"  "Working," 
etc.,  detachments,  armed  sailors  and  Red  Guards,  forcibly 
take  away  their  grain,  cattle,  vegetables,  and  enforce  con- 
tributions, and  those  who  resist  them  are  shot.  The  peasants 
long  for  peaceful  conditions,  to  settle  down  to  what  they 
have  won,  to  be  assured  against  any  attempt  to  deprive 
them  of  the  land  either  by  the  landowners  or  by  the 
strangers  from  the  towns — those  landless  seekers  of  an 
easy  life  who  appear  in  the  country  under  the  guise  of 
"Poorest  Peasants."  Their  only  hope  is,  therefore,  a  govern- 
ment which  would  ensure  them  a  settlement  of  the  land 
question  and  introduce  order.  Such  a  government  they 
would  support  with  all  their  strength. — Dr.  A.  A.  Titoff, 


BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   PEASANTS  151 

creased,  the  crooked  stick  be  supplanted  by 
modern  machinery,  the  peasant  enabled  to  get 
enough  land  to  support  him,  ways  must  be 
found  to  get  his  produce  to  market,  his  dwarf 
live  stock  must  be  replaced  with  normal  horses 
and  kine;  otherwise  terrible  famine  must  re- 
sult. Every  condition,  bad  before,  has  now  be- 
come much  worse.  It  has  also  become  more 
difficult  to  handle.  While  experimentation  has 
been  made  with  the  Dictatorship  of  the  Pro- 
letariat, the  peasant,  the  backbone  of  the 
country,  has  been  sliding  down  to  an  inevitable 
smash,  and  when  the  experimentation  is  all 
over  one  of  the  tasks  that  will  confront  and 
appal  civilization  ^^dll  be  to  put  the  Russian 
peasant  into  a  state  where  he  will  not  perish 
of  hunger  or  be  kept  alive  only  by  the  organ- 
ized charity  of  the  world. 

But  from  this  survey  of  the  basic  facts  it  is 
evident  that  the  Bolshevic  government  can  by 
no  possibility  be  said  to  represent  the  people 
of  Russia.  The  overwhelming  majority  of 
those  people  are  peasants.  They  had  never 
conferred  upon  the  existing  government  any 
semblance  of  authority;  consequently  it  could 
nefver  represent  them  in  a  political  sense.  A 
new  use  of  the  word  seems  to  have  grown  up 
in  literature  on  this  subject;  a  use  in  which  a 


152      BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

government  is  said  to  "represent"  the  people 
if  it  does  something  for  their  benefit.  Even 
this  new  definition  here  falls  to  the  ground. 
The  existing  government  in  Russia  has  done 
nothing  for  the  masses  of  the  peasants  except  to 
multiply  their  woes.  As  for  the  accepted  mean- 
ing of  the  word,  if  the  peasants  had  a  free 
and  equal  ballot  with  the  other  classes  in  the 
country  and  if  their  suffrages  could  be  honestly 
taken  and  have  normal  effect  the  Dictatorship 
of  the  Proletariat,  in  Russia  at  least,  would  be 
of  few  days. 


CHAPTER  VII 

GOVERNMENTAL.  EFFICIENCY 

The  weU-to-do  in  this  world  usually  do  the 
most  of  the  talking  about  good  government, 
but  as  a  matter  of  fact  it  is  a  subject  far  more 
important  to  the  poor.  From  any  ill-governed 
city,  for  instance,  the  rich  can  always  escape; 
the  poor  by  their  very  poverty  are  anchored  to 
the  spot.  If  the  streets  are  uncleaned  the  poor 
must  breathe  the  effluvia;  if  epidemics  are  rife 
the  poor  must  stay  and  chance  them.  Even 
as  to  that  old  frayed  and  tattered  subject  of 
taxation,  governmental  extravagance  and  in- 
competence mean  much  more  to  the  poor  than 
to  the  rich.  The  rich  can  get  along;  they  have 
the  agile  shoulder  and  can  thrust  the  tax 
burden  to  others;  the  poor  must  work  and 
sweat  to  support  it. 

If,  therefore,  we  are  to  pay  in  our  govern- 
ments any  real  and  useful  attention  to  the  in- 
terests  of  the   proletariat   the   chief  concern 

153 


154      BOLSHEVISM  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES 

must  be   that   government   shall   be  efficient, 
economical,  expert  and  wise. 

The  first  performance  of  the  Dictatorship  of 
the  Proletariat  was  to  cast  out  of  the  important 
offices  whatever  capable  men  might  have  been 
employed  there  on  the  ground  that  such  men, 
having  been  tainted  with  capitalism  under  the 
hated  Kerensky  (who  was  about  as  much  of  a 
capitalist  as  Eugene  V.  Debs),  were  unfit  to 
have  anything  to  do  with  the  pure  article  of 
government  about  to  be  offered.  Their  places 
were  filled,  as  before  observed,  with  men  of 
Lenine's  and  Trotsky's  selection,  warm,  ardent 
proletarians,  no  doubt,  and  fully  alive  to  the 
blessings  of  the  Great  Idea,  but  unfortunately 
not  familiar  with  the  methods  of  government 
and  apparently  incapable  of  learning  them. 
With  the  exception  of  the  police  every  depart- 
ment, within  three  months,  was  afloat  on  a 
wide,  wide  sea  of  chaos.  The  police,  indeed, 
functioned,  but  after  a  manner  new  and  not 
viewed  by  the  populace  with  unmixed  admira- 
tion. The  theory  was  to  shoot  anybody  that 
did  not  seem  to  be  on  legitimate  errand  bent. 
I  refrain  from  quoting  the  description  of  this 
system  given  to  me  by  one  of  the  last  Ameri- 
cans to  leave  Petrograd,  but  all  accounts  agree 
that  life  in  the  city  had  no  lack  of  interest. 


GOVERNMENTAL   EFFICIENCY  155 

There  is  excuse  for  the  police.  Petrograd  and 
Moscow  were  now  overrun  with  thieves.  In 
the  cities  where  at  first  property  and  life  had 
been  so  safe  that  visitors  marveled,  bandits  now 
roamed,  pillaging  and  murdering.  All  night 
long  the  guns  were  going  in  the  Nevsky  and  the 
Liteiny,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  in  the 
early  period  of  the  Bolshevic  rule  many  per- 
sons killed  by  the  police  and  said  to  be  political 
victims  were  merely  prowling  robbers.  The 
time  was  to  come  when  that  would  no  longer 
be  true;  but  assuredly  it  was  true  at  first. 

Policing  was  a  task  of  simple  proportions, 
easily  understood.  It  was  in  the  complexities 
of  the  other  departments  that  confusion  took 
up  its  home.  To  give  an  adequate  idea  of  its 
clamorous  reign  is  difficult.  If  we  can  imagine  a 
hundred  steamships  crossing  the  Atlantic  to- 
gether, a  mutiny  occurring  on  eacli,  on  each 
the  mutineers  throwing  all  the  oflBcers  and 
engineers  into  the  sea  and  placing  ship  and 
engine  in  the  sole  control  of  men  that  had  never 
before  seen  navigable  water  we  can  gather 
some  glimpse  of  what  followed.  The  fires  ran 
down,  the  propellers  stopped,  the  ships  began 
to  roll  about  in  the  seas  and  nothing  but  the 
proverbial  luck  of  the  drunken  and  the  de- 


156      BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

mented   kept   them   from   collision   and   total 
wreck. 

One  of  the  fundamental  principles  of  the 
Great  Idea  was  that  important  lines  of  business 
should  be  nationalized.  So  they  were  declared 
to  be  nationalized.  There  is  no  doubt  that  in 
an  organized  society  a  great  many  of  them 
would  be  much  better  conducted  under  national 
than  under  private  control,  but  the  task  of  con- 
ducting a  great  industry  is  not  completed  when 
a  shaggy  gentleman  appears  in  the  office  and 
announces  that  the  people  have  taken  posses- 
sion of  that  factory.  There  was  still  the  neces- 
sity of  determining  what  should  be  done  next, 
and  in  many  instances  that  detail  had  been 
forgotten.  At  first  some  of  the  proprietors  or 
managers  showed  a  disposition  to  resent  the 
seizure  of  the  works,  but  when  these  had  been 
led  out  and  shot  the  rest  desisted  from  com- 
ment and  let  the  representatives  of  Tiberius  do 
as  they  pleased.  In  some  cases  the  employees 
selected  a  manager  from  among  themselves, 
and  it  is  only  fair  to  say  that  instances  are 
on  record  where  the  choice  was  successful  and 
the  work  proceeded.  In  other  instances  the 
workers  themselves  insisted  upon  calling  back 
the  former  management  after  it  had  become 


GOVERNMENTAL   EFFICIENCY  157 

apparent  that  the  processes  of  the  Dictatorship 
would  mean  the  ruin  of  the  shop. 

The  nationalization  of  certain  lines  of  whole- 
sale and  retail  business  w^as  instituted  by- 
sweeping  decrees  that  forbade  private  traffick- 
ing and  made  the  tradesman  nominally  a  func- 
tionary of  the  state.  The  thing  was  of  course 
largely  farcical;  a  system  of  business  growing 
up  through  thousands  of  years  of  human  prac- 
tice is  hardly  to  be  overthrown  with  a  piece 
of  paper  and  a  vision  of  a  Red  Guard.  One 
of  the  announced  purposes  of  the  nationaliza- 
tion was  to  rescue  the  suffering  and  exploited 
people  from  the  predations  of  the  bourgeoisie 
and  other  scoundrels.  If  the  government  did 
the  business  the  government  would  fix  the 
prices.  It  never  occurred  to  these  economists 
that  if  they  sold  bread  they  would  have  to  buy- 
wheat  and  the  price  at  which  they  bought  the 
wheat  would  determine  the  price  of  the  bread, 
dictatorship  or  no  dictatorship.  Also  they 
seem  never  to  have  considered  the  fact  that 
they  could  not  forever  go  on  printing  roubles 
without  having  the  purchasing  power  of  the 
rouble  decline,  no  matter  how  many  decrees 
might  be  issued  to  the  contrary,  and  that  the 
one  end  to  that  road  was  collapse. 

Meantime  the  finances  of  the  country  had 


158      BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

been  put  into  the  hands  of  a  Commissary  of 
the  People  for  Finance  and  he  was  pro- 
ceeding to  wonderful  things.  On  a  certain 
morning,  as  I  have  before  related,  he  reached 
out  and  nationalized  all  the  banlvs  of  the  coun- 
try. Lenine  many  years  before  having  discov- 
ered and  recorded  the  certain  fact  that  the 
ownership  of  the  banks  in  any  country  means 
the  ownership  of  its  greatest  power,  the  move 
on  the  banks  was  accredited  to  some  of  his 
wisdom.  Unfortunately,  the  gentleman  selected 
to  carry  on  this  branch  of  human  activity  after 
the  banks  had  been  nationalized  seemed  unable 
to  distinguish  between  banks  of  money  and 
banks  of  sand.  The  country  being  free  "he 
could  see  no  reason  why  a  bank  should  not 
cash  anything  submitted  to  it;  checks  for  in- 
stance, whether  they  were  drawn  on  actual  or 
imaginary  accounts.  He  therefore  discontinued 
the  practice  of  making  inquiry  about  such 
matters  and  had  everything  cashed  that  came 
along.  Before  many  days  the  glad  news  circu- 
lated among  discerning  but  unscrupulous  per- 
sons and  they  went  into  the  banks  with 
baskets  to  bring  the  money  out.  Before  the 
new  management  discovered  that  checks  really 
ought  to  have  some  kind  of  an  account  back 


GOVERNMENTAL   EFFICIENCY  159 

of  them,  millions  and  millions  of  roubles  had 
been  irretrievably  lost. 

Having  learned  a  useful  lesson  about  the 
nature  of  checks  some  one  in  the  management 
now  conceived  that  they  offered  a  good  chance 
to  harass  the  low,  contemptible  bourgeoisie, 
always  to  be  hated  and  spurned,  so  a  rule  was 
made  that  only  150  roubles  a  week  could  be 
drawn  from  most  accounts.  In  1914  a 
rouble  had  been  worth  52  cents.  It  was  now 
worth  in  domestic  exchange  2i/2  cents.  What 
would  have  once  been  $78  was  now  become 
$3.75.  Even  in  Russia  families  do  not  know 
sufficiency  on  $3.75  a  week.  To  obtain  this 
the  depositors  must  stand  in  line,  in  some 
places  forty-eight  hours.  Having  observed  in 
these  same  streets  long  lines  of  the  poorest 
people  standing  for  many  hours  waiting  for 
bread,  I  find  it  difficult  to  become  greatly  ex- 
ercised about  the  plight  of  the  unfortunate 
depositors  in  this  respect;  but  all  that  aside, 
the  fact  of  the  gross  incompetence  of  the 
management  is  the  point  here.  Organized 
society  proceeds  by  intercommunication;  inter- 
communication requires  some  system  analogous 
to  finance;  if  the  crutch  of  modern  society  that 
we  call  banking  is  to  be  pulled  out  something 
else  must  be  substituted.     The  Bolshevics  did 


160      BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

not  substitute  anything.  Their  idea  seemed  to 
be  that  they  had  fulfilled  all  the  requirements 
of  modern  man  when  they  had  cursed  the 
bourgeoisie. 

They  seem,  also,  with  a  naive  and  rather 
touching  sincerity,  to  have  believed  that  in  this 
stage  of  human  development  it  is  possible  for 
one  nation  to  live  like  a  hermit  crab  having 
no  communication  and  no  commerce  with  its 
neighbors.  They  must  have  had  this  notion 
or  else  they  had  never  once  thought  about  the 
world  and  life  in  it.  It  is,  of  course,  conceiv- 
able that  if  Russia  could  live  within  itself  and 
neither  buy  nor  sell  outside  of  its  borders, 
repudiation,  however  immoral,  might  be  feasi- 
ble. But  Russia  could  not  possibly  live  the 
hermit  crab;  commerce  with  her  neighbors  was 
indispensable  to  her.  The  simplest  of  all  ob- 
servations about  commerce  is  that  it  proceeds 
upon  confidence  and  where  there  is  repudiation 
there  is  no  confidence  and  no  commerce. 

If  then  the  dream  of  the  wandering  student 
of  Simbirsk  could  have  been  realized  in  all 
other  respects,  if  he  could  have  built  his 
proletarian  state  and  had  his  will  and  elimin- 
ated peasants  and  all  others  but  the  hand 
workers,  it  would  have  smashed  eventually 
upon  this  one  deadly  reef  that  man's  life  in 


GOVERNMENTAL   EFFICIENCY  161 

this  world  has  become  too  complex  and  inter- 
national relations  far  too  intimate  to  allow  the 
isolation  of  any  country. 

When  the  Bolshevics  took  charge  of  the 
government  engine,  Russia  owed  about  twenty- 
nine  billion  dollars.  So  great  are  her  natural 
resources  that  she  could  support  even  this 
huge  debt  but  only  with  skilful  and  experi- 
enced management.  The  time  came  when  the 
Bolshevic  leaders  themselves  admitted  what  if 
they  had  been  fitted  to  govern  they  would  have 
known  from  the  beginning,  that  repudiation  of 
this  debt  was  impossible.  What  kind  of  man- 
agement was  now  applied  to  the  nation's 
twisted  financial  problems  appeared  when  the 
Bolshevics  had  been  in  control  six  months.  On 
May  23,  1918,  the  Commissary  of  the  People 
for  Finance  then  made  up  a  statement  of  the 
condition  of  the  Treasury  which  showed  that 
the  revenues  for  half  a  year  amounted  to 
4,500,000,000  roubles  and  the  expenses  to  the 
trifling  sum  of  22,000,000,000  roubles.  Already 
a  deficit  of  18,000,000,000  had  been  incurred. 
For  the  coming  year  the  Commissary  looked 
forward  to  an  expense  account  of  more  than 
100,000,000,000  roubles,  while  the  revenues 
would  amount  to  about  9,000,000,000.    I  have 


162      BOLSHEVISM   AND  THE   UNITED  STATES 

called  this  the  fairy  land  of  finance.    It  ought 
rather  to  be  called  the  delirium  tremens. 

In  this  emergency  nothing  seems  to  have  oc- 
curred to  the  Commissary  of  the  People  for 
Finance  except  to  work  the  printing  press  and 
issue  more  roubles.  So  long  as  the  paper  stock 
and  the  ink  barrel  held  out  that  fountain  of 
wealth  would  certainly  not  run  dry.  For  some 
time  the  presses  clanged  away  at  the  rate  of 
200,000,000  roubles  a  week,  at  which  point  in  the 
history  of  the  Dictatorship  roubles  were  being 
estimated  by  the  kilo.  By  January  1, 1919,  there 
had  been  put  afloat  in  Russia  close  to  120,000,- 
000,000  of  paper  roubles,  and  a  condition  had 
been  created  for  which  there  is  no  precedent  in 
history.  In  some  parts  of  the  country  exchange 
had  come  to  an  end  because  the  people  re- 
fused on  any  terms  (short  of  the  bayonet's 
point)  to  accept  the  government's  paper;  in 
others  men  resorted  to  the  primitive  conditions 
of  barter — so  many  potatoes  for  so  many  cab- 
bages. Where  the  government  was  able  to  force 
the  acceptance  of  its  paper  stock,  as  in  Petro- 
grad  and  Moscow,  the  cheapest  suit  of  clothes 
cost  1000  roubles ;  a  pair  of  shoes,  600  roubles ; 
a  hat,  500  roubles ;  a  collar,  20  roubles.  Meat, 
when  it  could  be  had  at  all,  cost  about  120 


GOVERNMENTAL   EFFICIENCY  163 

roubles  a  pound.  A  rouble  should  be  worth 
about  52  cents  of  American  money. 

In  the  meantime  there  was  developing  one  of 
the  greatest  disasters  ever  known  among  men. 
When  the  Bolshevics  seized  the  control  of  the 
government  starvation  had  begun;  under  the 
chaos  that  now  fell  upon  the  country  famine 
walked  the  streets  and  hunted  in  the  villages. 
Not  since  the  Black  Plague  of  the  Middle  Ages 
has  there  been  anjnvhere  in  Europe  so  fearful 
a  toll  of  lives.  The  little  children  died  by  the 
thousand ;  seven  in  ten  of  those  under  five  years 
of  age  perished.  Horses  fell  dead  in  the  streets 
for  lack  of  nourishment  and  were  instantly  sur- 
rounded by  a  swarm  of  hungry  wretches  that 
cut  and  hacked  at  the  body  to  get  something 
that  could  be  eaten,  fighting  with  swarms  of 
famished  dogs  and  with  one  another  for  a 
chance  to  tear  off  a  morsel  of  flesh.  About  all 
these  horrors  as  about  all  other  conditions  in 
Russia  I  steadily  reject  the  anonymous  reports 
printed  in  the  American  press.  **A  traveler 
recently  returned  to  Stockholm  from  Moscow" 
means  nothing  to  me.  The  interests  to  be  served 
by  painting  Bolshevic  Russia  as  black  as  pos- 
sible are  too  obvious.  I  have  accepted  only 
known  witnesses  and  the  verified  reports. 

With  the  coming  of  summer  Asiatic  cholera 


164      BOLSHEVISM  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES 

broke  out  in  these  dreadful  places.  The  people, 
emaciated,  enfeebled,  having  neither  strength  in 
their  bodies  nor  hope  in  their  minds,  a  huge 
population  that  for  weeks  had  been  fed  upon 
nothing  but  cucumbers  and  raw  cabbages,  were 
swept  away  like  flies  before  a  furnace  blast.  A 
terrible  feature  of  the  situation  was  that  there 
were  no  medicines  with  which  to  treat  the  sick ; 
in  all  the  land  not  a  spoonful  of  the  simplest 
remedy,  no,  not  for  the  little  children  that  died 
faster  than  they  could  be  buried.  The  doctors 
could  do  nothing  but  stand  and  watch  their 
patients  die.  There  was  no  milk  for  the  chil- 
dren, no  meat,  often  no  bread,  and  the  wails  of 
the  starving  echoed  in  the  tenements  all  day  and 
all  night.  Summer  passed  and  winter  came  on, 
the  almost  arctic  winter.  There  was  little  fuel, 
little  food,  little  clothing.  In  rags  the  poor 
creatures  shivered  and  huddled  and  froze. 
Then  an  epidemic  of  typhoid  fever  came,  fol- 
lowed by  the  deadly  typhus,  and  in  Petrograd 
alone  the  deaths  reached  two  thousand  a  day. 

Civilization  had  broken  down;  men  living  in 
the  houses  and  in  the  cities  of  civilization,  de- 
pendent upon  its  inventions,  beset  with  its 
wants,  were  suddenly  thrust  back  upon  a  bar- 
ren rock  of  primitive  conditions  to  perish  miser- 
ably.   To  this  utter  and  memorable  wreck  had 


GOVERNMENTAL    EFFICIENCY  165 

come  the  New  Utopia ;  this  was  the  end  of  that 
dreaming.  In  place  of  the  blessed  state  prom- 
ised for  the  proletariat  if  only  that  one  class 
could  gain  control  of  the  country  what  had 
descended  was  starvation  and  death. 

There  could  be  no  escape  from  the  stern  terms 
of  the  disaster.  Starving  in  Russia?  Mon- 
strous! For  Russia  had  plenty  of  food.  Great 
stacks  of  wheat  stood  by  the  railroad  line  in 
the  south  and  east ;  long  piles  as  high  as  a  two- 
story  house,  some  of  it  there  two  years  and 
some  three.  Freezing  in  Russia?  Absurd!  For 
what  are  these  endless  leagues  upon  leagues  of 
forest?  Not  the  war,  not  the  machinations  of 
the  bourgeoisie,  not  the  deviltries  of  the  capi- 
talists had  brought  upon  the  country  this  meas- 
ureless calamity,  but  only  the  incompetence, 
ignorance  and  inexperience  of  those  that  had 
taken  command  of  the  government.  To  save 
the  life  of  Russia  there  was  demanded  careful 
scientific,  intelligent  attention  to  the  present, 
and  the  future  and  they  thought  about  nothing 
except  revenge  for  the  past. 

The  products  of  the  factories  as  well  as  the 
products  of  the  farm  declined  rapidly.  Emaci- 
ated, half-fed  men  refused  to  work  or  were  un- 
able. The  government  began  to  be  threatened 
with  the  lack  of  materials  that  it  must  have  to 


166      BOLSHEVISM   AND  THE  UNITED  STATES 

exist;  ammunition  for  the  Red  Guards,  cloth- 
ing to  keep  them  from  freezing  while  they  over- 
awed the  villages.  Workingmen  began  to  go 
on  strike  against  living  conditions  that  were 
almost  intolerable,  since  it  was  not  possible  to 
secure  increases  of  wages  that  would  equalize 
the  decline  in  the  purchasing  power  of  the 
rouble.  The  principle  of  Anarchism  having 
been  introduced  among  them,  the  more  fortu- 
nate and  best  paid  workingmen  worked  only 
when  they  felt  so  disposed.  To  those  familiar 
with  the  labor  history  of  the  United  States  in 
the  last  ten  years  I  do  not  know  how  one  could 
give  a  better  notion  of  Lenine  at  this  crisis  than 
to  mention  the  fact  that  the  only  remedy  he 
proposed  was  to  introduce  in  the  factories  the 
Taylor  system  of  speeding  up — the  hated  Tay- 
lor system,  denounced  by  organized  labor  and 
social  reformers  from  one  end  of  the  United 
States  to  the  other,  pilloried  as  the  perfect 
example  of  the  cruelty  of  capitalism  to  the 
working  class,  and  now  advocated  for  the  pro- 
letariat of  Russia  by  the  prophet  and  magician 
of  their  emancipation! 

Naturally,  in  the  midst  of  this  debacle  there 
sprang  up  the  most  monstrous  corruption.  At  a 
meeting  of  the  financial  sections  (or  commit- 
tees) of  the  Soviets  at  Moscow,  May  17,  1918, 


GOVERNMENTAL   EFFICIENCY  167 

astonishing  revelations  were  made  of  the  con- 
duct of  the  Red  Guards  at  all  the  frontiers. 
Their  practice,  it  seemed,  was  to  go  through 
every  traveler  and  take  from  him  all  he  had,  if 
they  dared,  or  what  they  thought  the  traffic 
would  bear  if  he  seemed  to  be  a  person  likely 
to  have  influence.  It  must  have  been  among  the 
sacred  perquisites  of  the  Pretorians ;  complaints 
came  from  all  directions  of  their  rapacity  and 
cruelty  but  they  continued  to  grow  in  power. 
Persons  appointed  to  enforce  the  food  laws,  the 
laws  regulating  banks,  and  holding  other  places 
in  touch  with  the  people,  took  money  right  and 
left.  The  bank  supervisors  had  a  regular  tariff 
at  which  they  were  ready  to  violate  the  law, 
usually  twenty  per  cent,  of  the  amount  of  the 
transaction.  Almost  every  day  in  Moscow  one 
of  these  bank  officers  was  arrested,  but  the 
practice  throve  none  the  less. 

Vladimir  Bourtzeff,  the  old-time  Revolution- 
ist, the  most  hated  of  all  the  exiles  of  the  old 
regime,  the  stern  souled  leader  of  so  many  years 
of  desperate  fighting  for  Russian  freedom, 
gives  astounding  details  of  the  carnival  of 
venality  that  swept  over  the  new  order.  He 
was  a  long  time  a  prisoner  in  the  fortress  of 
Peter  and  Paul  for  the  crime  of  belonging  to 
the  Social  Revolutionary  party;  he  saw  men 


168      BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

that  he  had  exposed  as  police  agents  of  the 
Czar  occupying  high  positions  with  the  Bol- 
shevics  and  using  their  place  to  practise  extor- 
tion upon  the  most  unfortunate  of  mankind.  '  *  I 
exaggerate  nothing,"  says  Mr.  Bourtzeff,  *'I 
speak  of  the  crimes  of  which  I  have  been  an  eye- 
witness. I  have  seen  the  Bolshevics  in  my  own 
prison,  where  they  came  and  went  as  in  all 
the  others,  address  themselves  to  our  visit- 
ors and  debate  with  them  the  price  at  which 
they  would  set  at  liberty  parents  or  friends.  I 
have  seen  the  Bolshevics  take  money  to  relax 
somewhat  the  rigid  rules  of  the  prisons,  to  au- 
thorize a  removal  from  one  prison  to  another, 
release  on  parole,  the  stopping  of  prosecutions 
and  the  like.  I  have  seen  them  extort  from  some 
of  my  companions  in  misfortune  sums  ranging 
from  10,000  to  100,000  roubles  for  their  libera- 
tion, and  these  sums  were  furnished  to  them 
because  they  all  lay  under  the  perpetual  menace 
of  death  at  their  hands.  I  have  convincing 
proofs  in  a  dozen  cases  of  theft  committed  in 
the  prisons  by  the  Bolshevics."* 

He  cites  as  one  illustration  of  the  prevalent 
methods  the  case  of  a  banker  named  Vyschne- 
gradsky,  who  was  arrested  and  thrust  into  the 
fortress.     The  Bolshevics  demanded  1,000,000 

*  Les  Deux  FUaux  du  Monde,  p.  59. 


GOVERNMENTAL   EFFICIENCY  169 

roubles  for  his  release,  but  finally  compromised 
for  100,000.  '*It  was  the  People's  Commissary 
Uritsky,"  writes  Mr.  Bourtzeff,  ''president  of 
one  of  the  committees  of  instruction,  that  ob- 
tained Mr.  Vyschnegradsky's  money,  the  same 
Uritsky  that  recently  was  arrested  in  Denmark, 
where  they  took  the  prints  of  his  fingers  as  they 
would  with  a  dangerous  criminal."  He  adds 
that  a  protege  of  Uritsky,  also  People's  Com- 
missary and  a  brother  of  one  of  the  Bolshevic 
ambassadors,  is  now  sought  by  the  Bolshevics 
themselves  on  a  charge  of  theft.  He  says  that 
if  all  the  men  that  have  been  robbed  in  the  way 
the  banker  was  robbed  should  demand  restitu- 
tion the  scandal  would  surpass  anything  ever 
known  in  the  history  of  bribery  and  extortion. 

Such  a  scandal  actually  came  to  light  at  Kron- 
stadt,  where  much  of  the  local  administration 
finally  got  into  court  on  charges  ranging  from 
blackmail  to  theft.  He  gives  the  names  of  the 
accused.  They  included  Vassilief,  the  head  of 
the  department  of  justice,  Egoroff,  president  of 
the  local  committee  on  instruction,  the  secretary 
of  the  department  of  justice,  members  of  the 
municipal  council  and  others.  Among  the 
charges  made  against  some  of  these  men  was 
that  to  extort  money  they  had  organized  a  sj'S-. 
tem  of  terror  upon  the  peaceable  citizens,  who 


170       BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

lived  in  ceaseless  alarms,  expecting  every  mo- 
ment to  be  taken  from  their  homes  and  shot. 

** According  to  the  record  of  the  trial,"  says 
Mr.  Bourtzeff,  ''the  crimes  of  the  minister  of 
justice,  Vassilief,  and  the  president  of  the  com- 
mittee of  instruction,  Egoroff,  consisted  in  the 
organization  of  bands  of  malefactors  whose 
business  was  to  introduce  themselves  surrep- 
titiously among  the  citizens  that  had  been  de- 
nounced or  were  suspected.  From  such  citizens, 
according  to  the  testimony,  these  bandits  were 
able  to  secure  thousands  of  roubles  by  black- 
mail, false  accusations,  illegal  arrests,  abuse  of 
power  and  intimidation." 

He  adds  that  Vassilief  demanded  from  the 
Soviet  the  authority  to  shoot  anybody  he 
pleased  within  his  jurisdiction  and  when  this 
was  granted  he  terrorized  the  whole  region  to 
such  an  extent  that  no  one  dared  for  one's  life 
to  make  any  complaint  about  his  performances. 

When  Bourtzeff  had  been  a  Eevolutionary 
agitator  before  the  downfall  of  Czarism  his 
specialty  was  the  exposure  of  the  Czar's 
secret  agents,  for  whom  he  had  an  apparently 
infallible  scent.  It  was  he  that  ran  down 
Azeff,  whose  almost  incredible  career  I  have 


GOVERNMENTAL  EFFICIENCY  171 

before  related.  Two  of  the  worst  of  the 
police  spies  that  Bourtzeff  disclosed  were 
famous  operators  named  Guerasimof  and 
Stchejoglovitof.  But  he  declared  that  not 
even  these  would  have  dared  to  do  the  things 
that  eminent  Bolshevics  did  in  the  plenitude 
of  their  power.  He  cites  for  example,  Dzrjinsky, 
who  was  at  one  time  the  head  of  Lenine's  Ex- 
traordinary Committee  to  Combat  the  Counter- 
Revolution.  He  says  that  in  this  capacity  he 
was  surrounded  by  a  gang  of  thieves,  brigands, 
master  blackmailers  and  professional  assassins. 
For  the  unfortunate  that  fell  into  his  hands  he 
invented  a  veritable  torture  chamber.  His 
prisoners  were  subjected  to  a  treatment  that 
far  surpassed  in  abomination  anything  kno^vn 
in  the  ancient  dungeons,  and  while  the  Tribunal 
was  in  session  the  judges  took  care  to  keep  their 
revolvers  in  hand. 

"While  I  was  imprisoned  in  Petrograd,'* 
Bourtzeff  goes  on,  *'the  newspapers  reported 
several  cases  of  persons  that  were  killed  at  the 
end  of  a  hearing  before  the  Revolutionary 
Tribunal  for  the  simple  reason  that  they  had 
refused  to  testify. 

**  Finally,  one  of  these  assassins  was  arrested, 
charged  with  killing  a  man  in  the  course  of  a 


172      BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

trial.  He  cynically  confessed  his  atrocious 
deed,  but  no  tribunal  dared  to  condemn  him  and 
the  affair  was  hushed  up." 

Mr.  Bourtzeff  says  that  the  most  active  mem- 
ber of  Dzrjinsky's  committee  was  Boris  Rjev- 
sky,  not  long  before  a  mere  agent  of  the  police. 
The  last  service  he  had  rendered  in  that  ca- 
pacity w^as  to  go,  on  the  account  and  with 
the  money  of  the  Czar's  government,  to  Sweden 
and  Norway  in  search  of  the  man  that  was  sup- 
posed to  have  killed  the  monk  Rasputin.  Bourt- 
zetf  has  published  in  Russia  and  in  France  the 
record  of  this  man's  huge  extortions  in  his 
capacity  as  a  Bolshevic  committeeman.  Finally, 
he  was  arrested  charged  with  the  killing  of  a 
gambler  that  he  had  locked  up.  Rjevsky  was 
put  into  the  same  prison  that  Bourtzeff  was 
then  inhabiting.  *'We  all  expected  that  he 
would  be  shot,"  says  Bourtzeff.  *'His  wife 
had  been  informed  that  she  would  never  see 
him  again.  But  one  day  he  received  a  visit 
from  Dzrjinsky.  What  passed  between  them? 
Did  Rjevsky  possess  documents  that  compro- 
mised Dzrjinsky?  It  seemed  probable,  for 
Rjevsky  was  set  at  liberty  and  resumed  his 
place  among  the  Bolshevics." 

He  goes  down  the  list  of  the  committee.    One 


GOVERNMENTAL  EFFICIENCY  173 

called  himself  a  lieutenant  although  he  had 
never  seen  any  military  service.  The  next  was 
never  anything  but  an  adventurer,  a  thief  and 
a  swindler.  The  next  w^as  a  notorious  reaction- 
ary under  the  old  regime,  Avho  had  been  made 
by  the  Bolshevics  an  inspector  of  the  Red  Guard 
and  then  chairman  of  a  committee  named  to 
visit  all  the  clubs  in  the  capital.  The  object 
seems  obscure  until  we  learn  the  use  he  made 
of  his  assignment.  This  was  to  organize  sud- 
den researches  on  the  premises  for  the  extort- 
ing of  money  and  the  confiscating  of  valuables. 
Another  of  his  illegal  sources  of  revenue  was 
from  the  forbidden  sale  of  wine. 

Among  the  methods  of  the  Committee  to 
Combat  the  Counter-Revolution  was  to  arrest 
men  and  then  grant  them  respite  on  condition 
that  they  would  w^ork  for  the  committee  in 
dragging  down  other  persons.  When  they 
caught  a  victim  that  had  money  the  spy  received 
a  fourth  and  sometimes  a  third  of  the  amount. 

**The  most  famous  of  the  secret  agents  of  the 
committee  was  one  named  F.  Vergilesof,  whose 
transactions  concerning  gold  and  alcohol  com- 
promised a  great  number  of  official  persons  and 
caused  the  fall  of  many  others.  He  provided 
himself  with  false  documents  for  his  transac- 


174      BOLSHEVISM  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES 

tions  in  sugar  and  had  recourse  to  other  crimi- 
nal proceedings.  The  Dzrjinsky  committee  had 
him  arrested,  not  to  arraign  and  condemn  him 
but  to  set  him  at  liberty  as  one  of  its  agents."* 

He  proceeded  to  organize  a  system  of  com- 
missaries that  haunted  the  cafes,  restaurants, 
clubs  and  disorderly  resorts  in  search  of  rich 
victims.  His  agents  would  engage  these  in  a 
game  of  cards  and  then  of  a  sudden  whip  out 
revolvers  or  even  hand  grenades  and  demand 
first  whatever  money  the  victims  had  and  next 
their  signatures  to  confessions  of  plottings. 
The  confessions  were  sent  to  the  committee  to 
be  used  as  a  basis  for  further  extortions  and 
the  bandits  kept  the  money. 

At  one  time  there  were  approximately  three 
hundred  persons  in  the  prison  at  Viborg  that 
had  been  put  there  by  the  sole  machinations  of 
Vergilesof.  He  himself  was  finally  arrested 
and  honest  men  began  to  hope  that  he  was  about 
to  have  the  justice  long  overdue  him.  But  the 
Tribunal  acquitted  him  through  the  strange  in- 
terventions of  Dzrjinsky.f 

To  struggle  against  the  down  sweeping  tide 
of  confusion  and  ruin  a  favorite  device  was  to 


♦Page  53. 
•j- Pages  53-55. 


GOVERNMENTAL  EFFICIENCY  175 

appoint  a  commission  to  investigate  some 
branch  of  the  subject,  probably  thereby  provid- 
ing an  excuse  against  other  action.  The  same 
trick  is  familiar  enough  in  other  governments, 
but  was  hardly  to  have  been  expected  in  one 
formed  upon  the  ideas  of  Lenine.  Soon  Com- 
missions and  Commissaries  of  all  kind  were 
going  about  the  country  assuming  various  func- 
tions and  exercising  a  power  that  sometimes 
caused  more  astonishment  than  joy.  At  Perm, 
for  instance,  a  Commissary  of  Food  was  proved 
to  have  been  an  arrant  thief  and  was  arrested. 
Another  Commissary  was  sent  to  take  his  place, 
and  in  a  few  weeks  seems  to  have  stolen  every- 
thing he  could  lay  hands  upon.  He  likewise  was 
arrested  and  a  third  Commissary  appeared  to 
take  the  place.  This,  by  all  accounts,  proved 
to  be  the  worst  thief  of  all.  After  he  had  been 
arrested  the  local  Soviet  adopted  the  following 
laconic  minute : 

**That  it  being  apparent  that  all  the  Commis- 
saries sent  here  have  stolen,  are  stealing  or  will 
steal,  we  request  the  re-establishment  in  his 
functions  of  the  third  Commissary  that  has  been 
arrested,  for  he  has  at  least  this  advantage  that 
he  knows  his  business." 


CHAPTER  VIII 

LABOR  AND   TRANSPORTATION 

The  condition  of  the  Russian  toilers  under 
the  yoke  of  the  Czars  had  been  appallingly  bad. 
It  is  no  wonder  that  in  minds  like  Lenine  's  was 
bred  a  consuming  and  unquenchable  passion 
for  retaliation.  The  wages  were  so  low  that 
they  provided  worse  shelter  than  pigs  usually 
had  and  relatively  far  worse  food.  Some  fac- 
tory workers  did  not  receive  more  than  65 
kopeks  (about  32  cents)  a  day.  Wages  in  great 
and  profitable  industries  were  often  as  low  as 
27  to  28  roubles  (about  $15)  a  month  and  some- 
times the  most  skilled  workers  were  fortunate 
if  they  received  as  much  as  $1.40  a  day.  As 
the  cost  of  living  was  always  above  anything 
that  would  be  commensurate  with  such  in- 
comes, and  had  a  tendency  to  rise  while  wages 
stood  still,  these  were  conditions  of  unmitigated 
hardship.  From  the  beginning  of  the  war 
wages  slowly  advanced,  and  in  January,  1917, 
just   before   the   Revolution,  were   at   unpre- 

176 


LABOR   AND   TRANSPORTATION  177 

cedented  figures.  Even  then  weavers,  except  in 
Petrograd,  we'-e  working  sixteen  hours  a  day 
and  receiving  65  roubles  a  month,  or  about 
$33.00.  In  some  trades,  however,  wages  had 
doubled.  A  work  day  of  fourteen  and  even 
of  sixteen  hours  was  common. 

Mr.  M.  D.  Rosenblum,*  who  has  studied  these 
conditions,  gives  the  follo\\ing  specimen  table 
of  daily  wages  (in  roubles)  before  the  war,  and 
before  and  soon  after  the  Revolution: 


Trade.  « 

I 

m 

Jewelry  mounter 2.25 

Fireman   1.10 

Oiler 1.20 

Mason's  laborer 0.55 

Blacksmith 1.10 

Blacksmith's  helper..  0.80 

Saddler 1.00 

Locksmith  1.10 

Turner 1.40 

Carpenter 1.20 


e)  >i 

1 

4.50 

Is 
8.25 

£  a 

o  s  s 

83 

2.35 

4.40 

90 

3.50 

5.60 

60 

3.50 

5.60 

60 

4.50 

6.75 

50 

2.50 

5.56 

120 

3.00 

7.50 

110 

4.50 

6.75 

50 

5.50 

8.25 

50 

3.00 

6.75 

125 

*  In  One  Year  of  the  Russian  Revolution.    All  the  figures 
relating  to  wages  given  above  are  from  his  work. 


178      BOLSHEVISM  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES 

Before  the  Eevolntion  of  1905,  which  history 
sets  down  as  a  failure,  trade  union  organization 
was  not  allowed  in  Eussia.  The  Revolution 
beat  into  the  dull  head  of  government  the  right 
of  labor  to  organize ;  also  another  thing  no  less 
important,  the  right  of  the  people  to  free  edu- 
cation. But  labor  organization  proceeded  under 
the  stern  observation  of  the  government  and 
was  no  factor  in  the  industrial  situation  until 
after  the  Revolution  of  March,  1917,  when  Rus- 
sian labor  entered  upon  what  promised  to  be  its 
era  of  greatest  prosperity. 

The  Bolshevic  experiment  quickly  ended 
this  fair  outlook.  Of  all  the  people  of  Rus- 
sia that  suffered  because  of  the  overthrow- 
ing of  the  Provisional  Government  those  that 
suffered  most  were  the  workers  in  whose  name 
it  was  overthrown.  After  the  Revolution 
of  March,  1917,  the  interest  of  labor  had 
seemed  to  be  recognized  from  the  most  ad- 
vanced point  of  view  and  trade  unions  were 
encouraged.  "When  I  was  in  Russia  in  the  sum- 
mer of  that  year  the  forming  of  such  unions 
was  going  on  apace.  The  Metal  Workers' 
Union  of  Petrograd  had  more  than  100,000 
members  and  other  great  unions  were  cited  as 
bulwarks  of  labor's  strength.  I  was  often 
asked  for  blanks,  forms  and  instructions  to  help 


LABOR  AND   TRANSPORTATION  179 

in  such  organizations,  and  James  Duncan, 
first  vice-president  of  the  American  Federation 
of  Labor,  who  Avas  with  me,  was  continually  in 
demand  for  advice  and  help.  By  October  1  of 
that  year  the  membership  of  the  Petrograd 
Metal  Workers'  Union  had  passed  180,000;  the 
Textile  Workers'  Union  of  Moscow  had  80,000 
members,  the  Metal  Workers  of  Moscow  40,000, 
the  Porters'  Union  7,000,  the  Chauffeurs  7,000, 
the  Water  Works  Employees  2,00O,  the  Gold 
and  Silver  Workers  4,000. 

The  administrations  of  Luvoff  and  Kerensky 
had  for  Minister  of  Labor  M.  Skobeloff,  who 
had  both  skill  and  sympathy  for  his  job.  He 
cooperated  enthusiastically  with  the  trade 
unions  to  institute  labor  reforms.  One  of  them 
was  collective  bargaining  and  the  collective  con- 
tract,* both  of  which  he  saw  successfully  intro- 
duced. Another  was  boards  of  conciliation  for 
the  settling  of  labor  disputes.  He  secured  laws 
recognizing  and  protecting  the  unions,  recog- 
nizing and  defining  the  rights  of  workmen's 
committees,  dividing  the  country  into  labor  dis- 
tricts for  the  better  supervision  of  labor  affairs, 
laws  for  the  establishing  of  government  labor 
exchanges,   for  workmen's   insurance   against 


*  One  Year  of  the  Ruisian  Revolution. 


180      BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

sickness  and  accident,  forbidding  employers  to 
levy  fines  npon  workers  and  the  like. 

The  Dictatorship  of  the  Proletariat  came  and 
swept  away  most  of  these  advantages  as  useless 
in  a  state  where  everything  was  to  be  managed 
for  the  worker.  Under  the  Bolshevic  govern- 
ment the  trade  unions  were  declared  state 
organizations  and  lost  all  their  independence 
and  potency.  Even  the  right  to  strike  was 
taken  from  them,  so  far  as  irresponsible  gov- 
ernment can  take  away  any  inherent  right. 
Their  collective  bargaining  and  collective  con- 
tracts were  in  effect  abolished,  being  sup- 
planted with  government  decrees.  The  unions, 
under  these  conditions,  rapidly  dissolved. 
Within  six  months  the  Metal  Workers'  Union 
of  Petrograd  had  declined  to  60,000,  and  the 
Union  of  Chemical  Workers,  which  had  secured 
40,000  members,  had  lost  all  except  10,000. 

Meantime,  because  of  the  closing  of  the  fac- 
tories, unemployment  had  become  a  pufelic 
menace.  In  June,  1918,  of  12,000  textile 
machines  in  Moscow  only  6,000  were  working; 
of  thirty  great  factories,  fifteen  were  cold  be- 
cause they  could  not  get  raw  material.  In 
Petrograd  100,000  metal  workers  were  idle.* 


*Mr.  Rosenblum's  figures. 


» 


LABOR   AND   TRANSPORTATION  181 

The  lack  of  coal  and  the  lack  of  raw  material 
were  the  chief  causes  for  closing  the  factories. 
Sometimes  the  unprofitable  nature  of  the  busi- 
ness, the  high  wage  scales,  the  decline  in  work- 
manship, and  the  cessation  of  munition  orders 
were  causes  more  or  less  contributary,  but  the 
principal  source  of  trouble  remained  the  break- 
ing do^\Ti  of  the  sj^stem  of  transportation.  It 
was  strangling  Russian  industry  while  it 
starved  the  Eussian  people. 

In  other  words,  here  was  sternly  revealed  to 
all  the  world  the  great  basic  fact  that  modem 
man  cannot  live  without  a  system  of  communi- 
cation. The  dream  of  the  Dictatorship  of  the 
Proletariat  contained  no  provision  for  any  such 
system.  How  a  mind  so  powerful  and  thought- 
ful as  Lenine's,  a  mind  long  the  master  of  the 
whole  subject  of  economics,  could  have  missed 
or  underestimated  this  vital  point  I  am  unable 
to  imagine.  At  its  host  under  the  Czar  the 
railroad  system  of  Russia,  as  I  have  said,  had 
been  inadequate,  badly  operated  and  looted  by 
the  expert  thieves  and  grafters  with  which  the 
government  was  infested;  yet  with  all  its  de- 
fects it  was  the  arterial  system  of  Russia's 
body.  By  means  of  the  railroad,  food  and  fuel 
were  distributed,  the  factories  were  enabled  to 


182      BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

operate,  the  workers  had  employment,  the 
peasants  were  able  to  sell  their  crops,  the 
cities  were  fed  and  warmed. 

With  a  better  railroad  system  Eussia  would 
have  done  better.  With  what  railroad  system 
it  had  it  managed  to  live  and  slowly  to  develop. 

The  war  came  and  crippled  the  poor  rail- 
roads in  two  ways.  It  swept  off  great  quanti- 
ties of  rolling  stock  to  the  battle  fronts  and  it 
swept  off  to  the  ranks  the  mechanics  of  the 
railroad  repair  shops. 

In  a  few  months  the  side  tracks  began  to 
be  choked  with  disabled  locomotives  and  cars 
that  awaited  repairs.  In  June,  1917,  the  avail- 
able equipment  was  only  about  sixty-five  per 
cent,  of  normal  and  it  was  for  this  reason  and 
this  alone  that  Petrograd  and  Moscow  must 
live  on  rations.  There  was  plenty  of  food  in 
Russia  but  the  means  of  distributing  it  were 
insufficient. 

This  was  where  the  American  Railroad  Com- 
mission, headed  by  John  F.  Stevens,  had  an 
opportunity  for  usefulness  such  as  few  other 
bodies  of  men  have  had  in  our  times,  and  rose 
to  it  with  conspicuous  ability.  A  complete  plan 
was  prepared  for  the  rehabilitating  of  the 
Russian  railroads,  a  practical,  simple,  feasible 


LABOR   AJSJD   TRANSPORTATION  183 

plan  to  make  them  work  and  perform  their 
normal  function.  The  Provisional  Government 
accepted  this  plan  and  began  to  work  upon  it. 
If  it  had  been  carried  out  Kussia  would  not 
have  starved,  there  would  have  been  no  fright- 
ful epidemics,  typhus  and  cholera  would  not 
have  swept  off  their  exhausted  victims  by  the 
thousands,  the  promise  of  Russian  democracy 
would  have  been  fulfilled. 

The  Bolshevic  upheaval  came;  all  the  plans 
were  cast  aside.  Mr.  Stevens  and  his  asso- 
ciates were  driven  out  of  the  country  as  the 
tools  and  emissaries  of  American  capitalism, 
whatever  of  competence  or  ability  might  have 
shone  in  the  management  of  the  railroads 
seems  to  have  been  ejected  upon  some  theory 
of  proletarian  purity,  some  doubtless  worthy 
men  that  were  perfect  proletarians  but  did  not 
know  a  locomotive  from  a  wheelbarrow  were 
put  in  charge,  and  the  poor  old  railroad  system 
slipped  down  to  an  almost  inconceivable  ruin. 

I  have  here  the  figures  proving  that  such 
was  indeed  its  fate.  They  are  figures  fur- 
nished by  the  Bolshevist  railroad  department 
and  printed  in  Bolshevist  journals.  They  must 
therefore  be  correct. 


184      BOLSHEVISM  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES 

yersts*  of  railroad  line  in  operation: 

October  1,  1917 52,597 

October  1,  1918 21,800 

Available  locomotives: 

October  1,  1917 15,732 

October  1,  1918 5,037 

Available  freight  cars: 

October  1,  1917 521,591 

October  1,  1918 227,274 

This  was  all  that  had  happened  to  the 
Kussian  railroad  system  in  eleven  months  of 
Bolshevic  management.  It  was  enough.  Any- 
one familiar  with  the  Russian  needs  and  condi- 
tions would  say  at  once  that  any  government 
making  such  a  record  with  the  vital  railroad 
problem  upon  which  all  else  hinged  was  utterly 
impossible  and  capable  of  only  ruin  and  dis- 
aster. If  it  could  do  nothing  about  transporta- 
tion it  could  achieve  nothing  in  any  other 
respect.  If  it  did  not  understand  that  the  life 
of  Russia  hung  upon  the  restoration  of  its 
highways  it  could  understand  nothing.  In 
civilized  society  the  object  of  government  is 
not  to  provide  a  weapon  with  which  one  class 
may  revenge  itself  upon  another,  but  to  make 
safe  and  efficient  the  means  whereby  people 

*A  verst  Is  about  two-thirds  of  a  mile. 


LABOR  AND  TRANSPORTATION  185 

may  livo  and  seek  their  liappiness.  Any  so- 
called  government  that  is  carried  on  for 
another  purpose  is  no  government  at  all  and 
its  operations,  so  long  as  they  last,  can  produce 
only  misery  and  peril. 

Such  a  forecast  in  the  case  of  the  Bol- 
shevic  regime  was  quickly  verified.  The  rail- 
roads under  monumental  governing  incapacity 
practically  ceased  to  work.  Foreign  trade 
stopped  short:  people  outside  of  Russia  refused 
to  accept  the  paper  rouble,  even  by  the  bale, 
and  if  they  had  been  willing  to  weigh  it  into 
their  store-rooms  there  were  neither  railroad 
cars  nor  ships  in  which  to  carry  it.  No  coal 
came  for  the  factories,  and  no  raw  material; 
the  proletariat  without  work  was  left  to  gnaw 
its  fingers  and  warm  itself  in  the  fictitious  be- 
lief that  it  was  now  the  dictator  and  sat  in 
the  seats  of  the  mighty.  With  much  of 
Eastern  Russia  abounding  in  food  Northern 
and  Western  Russia  literally  starved  to 
death.  With  boundless  forests,  with  illimit- 
able coal  mines,  there  was  not  fuel  enough  in 
Petrograd  to  cook  meals  or  to  keep  an  ordinary 
household  warm.  No  stranger  spectacle  was 
ever  seen  on  this  earth.  The  Extraordinary 
Commission  to  Combat  the  Counter-Revolution 
sat  in  earnest  council  day  by  day,  condemning 


186      BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

to  death  members  of  the  bourgeoisie  and  of 
opposing  political  parties.  Lenine  appeared 
from  time  to  time,  deus  ex  machina.  The  able 
Trotsky  assured  the  world  in  many  telling 
phrases  that  the  Dictatorship  of  the  Proletariat 
was  triumphing  over  all  its  enemies.  The 
Revolutionary  Tribunal  confiscated  newspapers 
and  silenced  criticism.  And  all  the  time  there 
was  not  enough  executive  ability  in  the  gov- 
ernment to  move  a  freight  car  or  have  a  loco- 
motive repaired.*  No  one  need  try  to  tell  us 
that  the  administration  succumbed  to  adverse 


*The  Russian  railways  were  completely  disorganized  dur- 
ing demobilization.  The  railway  service,  inadequate  enough 
in  normal  times,  collapsed  entirely  during  the  war.  At 
present  the  railways  are  a  waste  of  broken  engines,  a 
desert  devoid  of  the  irrigating  moisture  of  lubricants  and 
fuel.  The  old  army  of  railway  employes,  oppressed  by  the 
Bolshevic  reign  of  terror  and  pillage,  is  still  there,  how- 
ever. The  menace  of  death  from  starvation  has  disciplined 
and  united  them. 

The  restoration  of  the  railway  traflfic  could  be  accom- 
plished in  a  short  time  if  the  rolling  stock  and  the  materials 
for  repair  were  supplied  from  abroad.  This  new  blood 
must  immediately  be  infused  into  the  veins  of  the  railways 
in  order  to  restore  regular  circulation.  Then  it  will  be  pos- 
sible to  feed  the  population  of  the  towns  and  to  carry 
raw  materials  to  the  factories.  The  fundamental  function 
of  normal  economic  life,  which  Is  the  supply  of  the  villages 
with  manufactured  articles  and  the  export  of  the  great 
stocks  of  grain  and  other  food-stuffs,  will  then  become 
possible. — Dr.  A.  A.  Titoff,  a  distinguished  economist  and 
one  of  the  leaders  of  the  People's  Socialist  party. 


I 


LABOR  AND  TRANSPORTATION  187 

conditions.  It  is  to  overcome  adverse  condi- 
tions that  governments  are  establislied  among 
men,  and  after  a  personal  investigation  of  the 
railroad  problem  in  Eussia,  with  which  I  have 
some  acquaintance,  I  am  prepared  to  state  that 
there  was  no  difficulty  in  those  problems  that 
could  not  have  been  fairly  overcome  by 
any  government  that  knew  how  to  govern  or 
had  another  concern  than  combatting  a  phan- 
tom counter-revolution  and  keeping  in  power 
an  administration  repudiated  by  the  great 
majority  of  the  people.  For  it  was  exactly 
there  that  the  trouble  lay  and  not  in  any  diffi- 
cult physical  conditions.  When  the  raging 
Bolshevics,  blinded  with  their  anti-bourgeois 
passions,  drove  away  the  American  railroad 
experts  and  surrendered  into  the  hands  of  ig- 
norance, incompetence  and  savage  prejudice 
the  most  delicate  and  important  of  social 
machineries  they  doomed  millions  of  people  to 
lingering  death. 

Similar  disasters  in  differing  degrees  at- 
tended the  whole  plan  of  giving  over  to  the 
untrained  and  the  uninformed  the  control  of 
vital  supplies.  To  November,  1918,  the  gov- 
ernments had  seized  513  industrial  establish- 
ments in  Russia;  factories  and  the  like.  Of 
these  about  one  hundred  had  been  taken  by  the 
national  authorities,  and  the  rest  had  been  con- 


188      BOLSHEVISM  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES 

fiscated  by  the  local  Soviets.  In  the  first 
quarter  of  1918,  the  State  was  obliged  to  spend 
more  than  730,000,000  roubles  to  pay  the  de- 
ficits incurred  in  working  these  enterprises 
with  men  that  did  not  understand  them.  This 
was  in  the  early  stages  of  Utopia.  It  appears 
that  the  annual  sum  now  required  to  meet  the 
deficit  on  operation  amounts  to  billions  of 
roubles. 

Industry  after  industry  went  down  under 
these  conditions.  With  so  great  a  shortage  of 
iron,  steel  and  coal,  the  simplest  operation  of 
factory  repair,  replacement  or  maintenance  be- 
came impossible. 

"The  setting  up  of  a  boiler  and  engine 
alone  costs  now  from  60,000  to  80,000  roubles, 
and  the  repairs  of  a  single  locomotive  cost 
560,000  roubles.  The  chemical  industry  no 
longer  exists.  The  postal  and  telegraphic  ser- 
vices are  in  a  state  of  complete  anarchy,  and 
a  letter  may  take  from  four  to  six  weeks  to 
get  from  Moscow  to  Petrograd,  if  it  gets  there 
at  all.  The  number  of  unemployed  is  ter- 
rible."* 


♦This  enlightening  paragraph  and  the  figures  about  the 
factories  are  taken  from  Dioneo's  recent  survey  in  a  Lon- 
don newspaper  of  the  present  economic  condition  of  Russia. 


LABOR   AND   TRANSPORTATION  189 

** Instead  of  Socialism,"  said  the  Berlin 
Vorwarts,  the  great  German  Socialist  daily, 
reviewing  these  things,  "we  have  a  madhouse. 
Hundreds  of  thousands  of  workmen  are  main- 
tained at  the  cost  of  the  State  whose  under- 
takings not  only  bring  in  no  revenue  but  de- 
mand colossal  subsidies." 

The  final  confession  of  the  failure  of  all  this 
came  on  January  17,  1919,  from  a  witness  so 
unimpeachable  as  Lenine  himself.  On  that  day 
he  promulgated  a  decree  restoring  the  right 
of  private  business  to  most  of  the  lines  of 
enterprise  his  government  had  sought  to  na- 
tionalize and  withdrawing  the  State  as  a  part- 
ner in  others.  In  announcing  this  memorable 
change  he  said  in  a  public  address: 

**If  each  peasant  would  consent  to  reduce 
his  consumption  of  products  to  a  point  a  little 
less  than  his  needs  and  turn  over  the  remainder 
to  the  State  and  if  we  were  able  to  distribute 
that  remainder  regularly,  we  could  go  on,  as- 
suring the  population  a  food  supply,  insuffi- 
cient, it  is  true,  but  enough  to  avoid  famine. 

**This  last  is,  however,  beyond  our  strength, 
due  to  our  disorganization.     The  people,  ex- 


190   BOLSHEVISM  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES 

hansted  by  famine,  show  the  most  extreme 
impatience.  Assuredly,  we  have  our  food 
policy,  but  the  essential  of  it  is  that  the  de- 
crees should  be  executed.  Although  they  were 
promulgated  long  ago,  the  decrees  relative  to 
the  distribution  of  food  products  by  the  State 
never  have  been  executed  because  the  peasants 
will  sell  nothing  for  paper  money. 

^'It  is  better  to  tell  the  truth.  The  condi- 
tions require  that  we  should  pitilessly,  relent- 
lessly force  our  local  organizations  to  obey  the 
central  power.  This,  again,  is  difficult  because 
millions  of  our  inhabitants  are  accustomed  to 
regard  any  central  power  as  an  organization 
of  exploiters  and  brigands.  They  have  no  con- 
fidence in  us  and  without  confidence  it  is 
impossible  to  institute  an  economic  regime. 

*'The  crisis  in  food  supplies,  aggravated  by 
the  breakdown  of  transportation,  explains  the 
terrible  situation  that  confronts  us.  At 
Petrograd  the  condition  of  the  transportation 
service  is  desperate.  The  rolling  stock  is  un- 
usable.'' 

After  fourteen  months'  uninterrupted  and 
unlimited  sway  of  the  Dictatorship  of  the 
Proletariat  to  this  state  of  melancholy  collapse 


\ 


LABOR   AND   TRANSPORTATION  191 

had  come  the  whole  bright  structure  of  his 
vision.    It  was  John-a-Dreams's  awakening. 

And  it  is  not  to  be  supposed,  as  some  of  us 
seem  inclined  to  suppose,  that  the  cause  of  the 
collapse  is  racial;  that  the  Bolshevic government 
could  not  function  merely  because  it  was  Rus- 
sian; that  Russians  can  never  handle  anything 
that  needs  organizing  power.  At  the  same  time 
that  chaos  reigned  supreme  in  the  Council 
of  People's  Commissaries,  Russians  elsewhere 
were  giving  a  most  remarkable  exhibition  of 
the  power  to  organize  and  to  achieve.  The 
Lenine  government  could  do  nothing  with  the 
problem  of  food  supply  nor  with  production. 
The  great  Russian  cooperative  societies,  which 
had  nothing  to  do  with  the  government  and 
were  chiefly  composed  of  the  government's 
opponents,  undertook  both  problems  and  to  a 
great  extent  solved  them. 

After  the  Revolution  of  March,  1917,  when 
the  Czar  was  driven  out,  cooperation  in  Russia 
began  to  make  great  advances.  Its  increase 
has  been  steady  even  under  the  Dictatorship 
although  the  Bolshevists  gave  it  no  support 
nor  countenance,  for  cooperation  and  the 
Lenine  philosophy  are,  of  course,  incompatible. 
The  following  table  exhibits  its  growth: 


Number  of  Societies 

in  1914.          Jan.  1.  1917. 

12,751 

10,080 
5,000 

16,057 

20,000 
6,000 

3,000 

4,000 

192   BOLSHEVISM  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES 

Nature  of  Societies 

in  1905. 

Credit     and     Loan 

Savings 1,434 

Consumers  1,000 

Agricultural    1,275 

Artels  and  Butter- 
making  2,000 

Total 5,709        30,831        46,057 

By  1918  the  total  number  of  cooperative 
societies  was  estimated,  in  the  absence  of  any 
returns,  at  50,000  and  the  total  membership  at 
20,000,000,  but  it  is  certain  that  both  these 
totals  are  now  far  exceeded  and  one  may  rea- 
sonably believe  that  there  are  30,000,000  co- 
operators  in  Russia. 

The  business  these  societies  can  do  is  to  be 
gathered  from  these  facts: 

In  1917  the  turnover  of  the  All-Russian 
Union  of  Consumers'  Societies  was  more 
than  200,000,000  roubles;  Society  of  Wholesale 
Purchases,  30,000,000  roubles;  the  Ural  Union 
of  Cooperative  Stores,  for  the  first  half  of 
1917,  more  than  6,000,000  roubles;  Union  of 
Siberian  Cooperative  Unions,  about  40,000,000 
roubles;  of  the  Narodny  (People's)  bank  of 
Moscow,  3,000,000,000  roubles. 


LABOR  AND  TRANSPORTATION  193 

The  cooperators,  through  their  national  con- 
gress, have  distinctly  condemned  Bolshevism 
and  demanded  the  calling  of  a  Constituent 
Assembly. 

On  January  1,  1919,  it  was  estimated  that 
only  forty  per  cent,  of  the  factories  of  Russia 
were  in  operation,  that  these  were  turning  out 
only  forty  per  cent,  of  their  normal  product, 
and  that  outside  of  the  war  munitions  prac- 
tically the  whole  of  such  factory  production 
as  still  continued  was  in  the  hands  of  the 
cooperators. 

One  difficulty  about  factory  operation  was 
the  lack  of  coal,  and  the  only  cause  of  coal 
shortage  was  the  breakdown  of  the  railroads. 
There  is  a  plenty  of  coal  in  Russia.  The  co- 
operators  went  into  the  coal  fields,  made  up 
their  own  trains  and  brought  coal  under  their 
own  guard  to  their  factory  doors.  Their  in- 
competent government  having  failed  to  func- 
tion, they  took  up  the  work  themselves  and 
performed  it.  Where  water  transportation 
was  required  they  hunted  up  the  steamboats 
and  operated  them.  They  not  only  got  coal 
for  themselves  but  in  some  of  these  places  they 
had  coal  to  spare  for  others,  the  only  coal  in 
sight. 

Similarly    the    government    of    Archangel, 


194      BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE  UNITED  STATES 

under  the  able  presidency  of  Nicolai  Tschai- 
kowsky,  the  old-time  Socialist  leader,  was 
giving  an  example  of  Eussian  efficiency. 
Tschaikowsky  had  steadfastly  opposed  the 
Bolshevic  idea  and  repeatedly  warned  his 
countrymen  that  it  was  unworkable.  He 
showed  himself  to  be  prophet  as  well  as  econo- 
mist and  student,  for  he  foretold  exactly  what 
happened  in  regard  to  every  essential  feature 
of  Bolshevic  rule.  Overwhelmed  by  the  coup 
of  November  7,  1917,  he  escaped  with  some 
difficulty  the  fate  that  fell  upon  so  many  other 
able  men  of  his  views,  and  made  his  way  to 
Archangel.  When  Archangel  refused  to  be 
governed  by  the  Leninists  and  set  up  its  own 
government,  Tschaikowsky  was  made  its  presi- 
dent. 

Although  naturally  in  a  worse  position  in 
regard  to  food  and  fuel  supplies  than  Petrograd 
or  Moscow,  there  has  been  no  suffering  in  Arch- 
angel. The  business  of  life  has  gone  on  with- 
out interruption.  There  have  been  no  shoot- 
ings and  no  Red  Terrors.  Transportation  has 
been  organized;  order  has  been  maintained. 
Yet  the  government  has  had  more  to  contend 
with  than  food  shortage,  as  one  incident  will 
illustrate. 

There  was  very  little  grain  in  Archangel  and 


LABOR  AND  TRANSPORTATION  195 

the  terrific  arctic  winter  was  in  sight.  The 
government  sent  to  the  Southeast  where  there 
was  plenty  of  wheat  and  contracted  for  a  suffi- 
cient supply.  This  it  arranged  to  have  brought 
down  the  river  in  boats  to  the  ocean, 
then  in  the  face  of  the  greatest  difficulties 
organized  its  own  transport  service  and  got 
the  wheat  to  Archangel. 

Yet  in  one  respect  the  collapse  of  the 
Lenine  dream  was  a  defeat  to  all  persons 
having  part  in  or  sympathy  with  the  long 
struggle  of  labor  for  justice.  With  doubt- 
less only  the  best  of  intentions  the  blunderers 
of  Petrograd  and  their  followers  had  inflicted 
upon  that  cause  and  the  cause  of  true  democ- 
racy everyAvhere  a  memorable  injury.  The 
theory  of  the  governing  class  is  essentially  the 
same  theory  by  which  the  injustice  wrought 
upon  labor  is  defended.  It  is  that  a  few  men 
are  sent  into  the  world  endowed  with  superior 
minds  entitling  them  to  rule  in  the  one  case 
and  to  possess  the  fruits  of  other  men's  toil 
in  the  other.  Men  that  work  with  their  hands 
are  incapable  of  government;  hence  we  must 
have  kings  or  the  like.  Men  that  work  with 
their  hands  are  incapable  of  carrying  on  the 
world's  business;  hence  we  must  have  multi- 
millionaires. 


196      BOLSHEVISM  AND  THE  UNITED   STATES 

This  pemicions  theory,  black  with  ancient 
bloodshed,  the  Bolshevics  have  revived, 
strengthened  and  prolonged  when  it  was  all  but 
dying  of  inanition.  Henceforth  all  reaction- 
aries that  use  it  will  be  fortified  with  powerful 
example.  Men  that  work  with  their  hands 
were  here  entrusted  with  full  and  sole  control 
both  of  government  and  of  business.  They 
made  of  both  such  wrecks  as  will  be  enduring 
landmarks  in  the  world's  history,  and  they 
made  these  wrecks  simply  because  of  innate 
incompetence.  They  did  not  know  and  they 
could  not  learn.  So  it  will  be  said  in  every 
corner  of  the  earth. 

One  of  the  countries  certain  to  feel  this  par- 
ticular phase  of  the  evil  is  our  own.  The  form 
of  the  old  reactionary  faith  that  has  taken  root 
here  is  that  only  the  legal  mind  can  be  trusted 
to  take  charge  of  public  affairs,  and  while  we 
seldom  think  of  the  fact,  the  practice  of  that 
theory  is  to  exclude  the  workers  as  effectually 
as  if  by  statute. 

The  S3rmbol  of  our  governing  class  is  a  law 
book. 

Yet  if  we  are  to  have  a  democracy  there  can 
be  no  governing  class,  whether  as  a  result  of  a 
fetich  or  of  a  law.  The  democratic  emancipa- 
tion of  the  world  has  proceeded  and  can  pro- 


LABOR  AND  TRANSPORTATION  197 

ceed  only  by  the  elimination  of  all  class  lines 
and  the  equal  participation  of  all  people  in  the 
government.  In  this  direction  it  was  moving 
even  in  our  country  when  some  god  of  misrule 
sent  to  the  dreamer  of  Simbirsk  the  vision  of 
the  Dictatorship  of  the  Proletariat.  In  the 
same  direction  it  will  move  again  when  this 
unhealthy  dream  shall  have  been  forgotten; 
but  in  the  meantime  democrats  all  about  the 
world  will  find  their  task  the  harder  and  the 
longer  because  of  him. 

In  spite  of  all  the  arguments  to  the  contrary 
that  reactionaries  will  draw  from  these  records 
of  failure  and  defeat,  it  is  not  true  that  men 
that  work  with  their  hands  have  less  ca- 
pacity for  government  or  business  than  any 
other  men.  The  reason  they  failed  in  Russia 
was  because  they  never  had  a  chance.  Gov- 
ernment there  was  not  carried  on  by  but  only 
for  the  workers.  It  was  never  for  a  moment 
a  government  that  the  workers  had  chosen  and 
in  which  they  had,  with  all  the  population,  a 
free  and  democratic  voice.  It  was  a  govern- 
ment imposed  upon  them  by  fraud  and  force. 
It  was  merely  autocracy  by  another  name,  Czar- 
ism  with  a  different  label.  Only  by  the  rank- 
est misrepresentation  can  any  other  idea  of  it 
be  put  upon  the  world,  and  yet  the  interests 


198      BOLSHEVISM  AND  THE   UNITED   STATES 

that  will  seek  such  misrepresentation  will  be 
so  strong  and  have  such  powerful  influences 
to  serve  we  may  be  sure  the  attempt  will  con- 
tinue. There  has  been  enough  of  it  already  to 
warn  us  of  what  it  can  do. 

Against  the  failure  of  the  Dictatorship  of 
the  Proletariat  in  Russia  we  may  well  set  the 
success  of  the  democracy  of  labor  in  Australia. 
The  most  efficient  and  capable  government 
Australia  had  known  up  to  the  days  of  the 
war  was  composed  of  a  locomotive  engineer 
for  prime  minister,  a  cook  for  attorney-general, 
a  hatter  for  treasurer,  a  carpenter  for  head  of 
the  war  office,  a  bank  clerk  for  secretary  of 
the  interior  and  a  miner  for  postmaster-gen- 
eral. The  same  carpenter  secretary  of  war 
throughout  the  recent  struggle  marshaled  and 
equipped  the  Australian  armies  that  gave  such 
brilliant  account  of  themselves  on  the  western 
front.  These  achievements  are  no  phenomena 
in  Australia,  where  a  man  has  worked  as  a 
mason  on  the  capitol  building  and  then  sat  in 
it  as  premier. 

But  in  all  such  instances  the  men  that  won 
the  successes  were  backed  by  the  free  choice 
and  collective  wisdom  of  a  majority  of  the 
voters;  they  were  men  fortified  in  advance  by 
study  of  the  world  of  actuality  with  its  prob- 


LABOR  AND  TRANSPORTATION  199 

lems  and  its  machinery;  and  they  were  ani- 
mated with  the  purpose  of  best  providing 
society  with  what  it  must  have  to  go  on  and  not 
with  the  purpose  of  wreaking  vengeance  for 
any  past  wrong. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  OLD  AUTOCRACY  AND  THE  NEW 

In  America  the  belief  is  general  that  the  Bol- 
shevics,  whatever  may  have  been  their  excesses 
and  blunders,  are  Russian  Revolutionists;  that 
they  are  of  the  men  that  so  many  years  planned, 
hoped,  struggled  and  sacrificed  to  rid  Russia 
of  the  ancient  curse  of  the  Czar. 

But  if  this  were  true  we  should  all  be  under 
obligation  to  speak  with  tolerance  of  Bol- 
shevism and  to  await  with  patience  the  return 
of  a  better  wisdom.  Because  the  old  Russian 
Revolutionist  was  the  greatest  of  all  the  heroes 
of  democracy.  Not  even  Garibaldi  and  Mazzini 
rose  to  such  heights  of  service  and  self-abne- 
gation. To  fight  the  forces  of  autocracy  in  the 
open,  man  to  man,  with  the  knowledge  of  glory 
and  ultimate  success  even  if  you  fail  to  win  a 
particular  battle,  commands  a  hot  courage  and 
much  devotion;  but  to  go  on  year  after  year 
striving  and  devising,  delving  and  counter-min- 

200 


I 


THE   OLD    AUTOCRACY   AND   TlIE   NEW        201 

ing,  working  in  sub-cellars,  trying  to  surpass  in 
cunning  the  most  cunning  creatures  of  earth, 
spying  upon  spies,  dwelling  always  under  the 
shadow  of  the  gallows  and  Siberia,  looking  for- 
ward to  the  certainty  of  detection  and  a  shame- 
ful death,  the  lime  pit  for  one's  body  and  ob- 
livion for  one's  name,  there  are  no  glamours 
of  romance  or  fame  about  such  a  contest;  it 
requires  pure  sacrifice  and  selfless  devotion. 

But  in  truth,  while  the  Bolshevic  extrava- 
gances were  the  direct  reaction  from  the  old 
regime,  very  few  of  the  old-time  Revolutionist 
leaders  had  any  other  connection  with  Bol- 
shevism than  to  fight  it.  Lenine,  of  course,  is,  in 
a  way,  an  exception;  he  had  suffered  and 
kno^\^l  exile.  But  most  of  his  associates  had 
viewed  the  great  struggle  from  extremely  safe 
seats.  New  York,  London,  or  other  salubrious 
climes  where  the  knout  was  unknouTi  and 
Siberia  but  a  word.  So  soon  as  they  heard  of 
the  Revolution,  were  well  assured  that  it 
was  indeed  a  success  and  therefore  that  the 
police  agents  walked  the  streets  no  more,  they 
crowded  the  boats  and  trains  for  Russia,  sing- 
ing Revolutionary  hymns,  sometimes  quite  new 
to  their  lips.  Many  of  them  were  Anarchists, 
many  were  plain  trouble  makers  delighting  in 
trouble  for  its  own  sake,  liking  the  taste  of  it, 


202       BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

and  some  no  doubt  had  an  honest  but  vague 
belief  that  in  some  way  a  new  dispensation  had 
arrived  and  they  were  appointed  to  be  its 
heralds  and  horn  blowers. 

The  old  Revolutionists  were  all  with  the  Pro- 
visional Government,  which  Bolshevism  over- 
threw. On  the  whole,  their  faith  was  justified : 
the  Provisional  Government  comprised  some  of 
the  most  competent  minds  in  Russia,  and,  as 
we  have  seen,  if  it  had  been  allowed  to  work 
out  its  own  plans  with  the  support  of  the  Soviet 
would  have  met  the  most  pressing,  at  least,  of 
the  problems  that  beset  the  country.  It  had  a 
program  adequate  to  meet  the  worst  of  the 
food  situation,  to  restore  the  railroads,  to 
solve  the  land  problem,  to  increase  agricultural 
production,  to  combat  illiteracy,  to  bring  Rus- 
sia to  its  due  place  among  the  nations.  Upon 
this  situation  the  inroad  of  the  Bolshevics  was 
like  a  herd  of  wild  cattle  breaking  into  an  archi- 
tect's  studio. 

It  was  a  tragic  ending  to  so  great  a 
story.  Plechanoif  died  of  grief  and  disappoint- 
ment; he  had  been  the  first  man  in  Petrograd 
to  unfurl  the  flag  of  the  Revolution.  Prince 
Krapotkine,  the  aged  leader,  whose  writings 
have  been  translated  into  almost  every  modern 
language,  stood  out  in  bold  opposition  to  the 


THE  OLD  AUTOCRACY  AND  THE  NEW    203 

Bolshevic  dictatorship,  and  was  thrust  into  the 
fortress  of  Peter  and  Paul.  One  would  have 
thought  his  gray  hairs  and  great  services  to  the 
Revolutionary  cause  would  have  made  him  im- 
mune to  any  vengeance.  He  had  grown  so 
feeble  that  his  voice  had  lost  all  its  old-time 
ring,  but  he  raised  it  first  to  celebrate  the  Revo- 
lution and  then  to  plead  against  Bolshevism, 
and  so  went  back  to  jail.  Peter  and  Paul — 
fifty  years  before  he  had  been  confined  in  that 
gloomy  dungeon  by  the  order  of  the  Czar  be- 
cause he  had  spoken  for  human  liberty.  His 
daring  escape  is  one  of  the  deathless  records 
of  the  historic  place ;  how  he  fooled  his  guards 
and  threw  himself  suddenly  into  the  Neva  as 
if  to  drown;  how  he  floated  so  long  with  the 
tide,  his  nose  just  above  the  water.  And  now 
he  is  back  again  in  the  same  old  fortress  and 
maybe  in  the  same  old  cell. 

Marie  Spirodonovo,  the  saint  and  martyr  of 
the  Revolution,  the  most  wonderful  soul  that 
Revolution  ever  produced,  whose  all  but  incredi- 
ble sufferings  at  the  hands  of  the  fiends  of  the 
Czar  will  be  told  so  long  as  any  chapter  of  the 
Revolutionary  story  is  told  anywhere — the  Bol- 
shevics  did  not  hesitate  to  lay  hands  upon  even 
her.  She  is  the  idol  of  the  peasants,  whose 
cause  she  has  frequently  championed.    At  first 


204       BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

she  was  much  attracted  to  Bolshevism,  particu- 
larly in  view  of  Lenine's  idea  of  the  way  to 
solve  the  land  problem.  She  had  understood 
well  how  the  peasants  were  constricted  by 
the  lack  of  land;  she  had  seen  them  slowly 
sinking  to  lower  depths  of  poverty  that  no  in- 
dustry or  skill  of  theirs  could  better.  Now  that 
they  were  to  have  the  land  they  needed  she 
thought  to  see  an  end  of  suffering  among  them. 
This  was  in  the  early  spring  of  1918.  Before 
July  came  it  was  apparent  that  the  plan,  so  to 
call  it,  had  failed.  Some  peasants  had  secured 
land ;  many  more  had  secured  none,  and  the  great 
problem  was  as  far  as  ever  from  solution.  Dis- 
illusion had  come  to  Marie  Spirodonovo,  not 
only  about  this,  but  about  other  pretenses  of 
Lenine.  He  had  not  been  the  Eevolutionary 
savior  of  Russia,  he  had  not  brought  peace, 
liberty  nor  light.  Being  without  the  sense  of 
fear  it  was  necessary  to  her  that  she  should 
make  a  declaration  of  her  changed  conception 
of  Bolshevism  and  make  it  in  the  face  of  the 
nation. 

The  occasion  she  chose  was  a  public  meeting 
at  the  largest  theater  in  Moscow.  Lenine  was 
there,  sitting  in  a  box.  Trotsky  and  other  emi- 
nent Bolshevics  attended.  The  place  was 
crowded.    Marie  Spirodonovo  was  on  the  stage. 


THE  OLD  AUTOCRACY  AND  THE  NEW    205 

When  she  got  a  chance  to  speak  she  utilized  to 
its  utmost  resources  what  I  suppose  to  be  the 
greatest  oratorical  gift  possessed  by  man  or 
woman  of  her  day.  She  is  small  and  slight, 
and  apparently  in  ill  hoalth,  but  by  all  accounts 
she  made  that  theater  ring  that  night.  For 
twenty  minutes  the  scoria  of  her  wrath  inun- 
dated Lenine,  and  as  she  proceeded  he  be- 
came more  visibly  affected  b}^  it.  She  strode 
across  the  stage  and  thrust  her  small  finger 
into  his  face  and  denounced  him  to  all  the  world 
as  the  false  prophet,  the  faithless  leader  of  the 
people,  the  betrayer  of  the  peasants,  the  traitor 
to  liberty. 

The  audience  sat  in  breathless  astonishment, 
appalled  at  the  probable  fate  of  the  daring 
woman.  Thousands  of  persons  had  been  shot 
in  their  tracks  and  thousands  of  others  had 
mysteriously  disappeared  for  saying  a  modicum 
of  what  she  had  said.  Lenine,  his  face  burn- 
ing with  anger,  made  answer  to  her.  For  the 
first  time  on  record  he  seems  to  have  lost  the 
cold  self-command  and  faultless  aplomb  that 
are  famous  in  him;  for  the  first  time  also  he 
met  attack  upon  his  policies  by  descending  to 
personal  insult  and  worse.*     What  should  be 

*  What  this  was  in  this  instance  can  hardly  be  indi- 
cated, much  less  reported.     Those  that  know  the  terrible 


206   BOLSHEVISM  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES 

her  punishment  at  the  hands  of  the  Dictator- 
ship became  now  the  question  on  all  lips.  If 
any  one  else  had  said  what  she  had  said  the 
question  would  have  been  easily  answered. 
But  Marie  Spirodonovo,  the  most  noted  martyr 
of  the  Revolution,  the  popular  saint,  the  idol 
of  the  peasants,  to  whom  it  was  said  some  of 
them  actually  prayed — that  was  a  different 
matter.  Marie  Spirodonovo — she  could  not  be 
whisked  away  and  disposed  of  in  a  cell  or 
thrown  into  the  Neva. 

For  a  few  days  she  was  unmolested.  Then 
she  was  quietly  brought  before  some  tribunal 
no  doubt  convoked  for  the  purpose,  adjudged 
to  be  insane,  and  confined  in  an  asylum.  On 
February  1,  1919,  she  was  reported  still  a 
prisoner  in  this  place. 

Prince  Luvoff,  for  a  time  the  head  of  the 
Provisional  Government,  whose  life  had  been 
spent  in  altruistic  work  for  the  peasants,  almost 
the  father  of  the  zemstvo,  or  peasants'  union, 
to  whose  unselfish  labors  millions  of  Russians 
owed  the  only  safeguard  between  them  and  an- 
nihilation. He  was  not  a  member  of  the  Pro- 
visional  Government  when  it   fell.     In  four 


story  of  Marie  Spirodonovo  may  guess  something  of  It 
when  I  say  that  all  things  considered  it  was  probably  the 
vilest  remark  ever  made  by  any  man  to  any  woman. 


THE   OLD   AUTOCRACY   AND   THE   NEW         207 

months  he  had  taken  no  part  in  public  affairs 
but  had  gone  back  to  his  zomstvos  and  his  co- 
operatives. He  was  singled  out  as  a  special 
object  of  hatred ;  not  because  of  any  offense  he 
had  committed  but  because  he  belonged  to  the 
class  that  had  been  set  apart  for  extermination. 
He  smuggled  himself  into  the  country  and  for 
some  months  tramped  the  woods  and  across 
the  steppes  making  his  way  east.  After  wild 
adventures,  often  at  the  point  of  being  taken 
and  often  concealed  by  the  peasants,  he  emerged 
at  a  place  of  safety  clothed  in  rags  and  so 
matted  with  beard  and  hair  his  friends  did  not 
know  him.  It  is  an  odd  fact  to  remember  that 
his  escape  closely  followed  the  story  of  more 
than  one  of  the  Revolutionist  leaders  of  the  old 
days  that  had  managed  to  win  free  from  the 
bloodhounds  and  police  spies  of  the  old  regime 
following  indefatigably  on  their  trail.  If  he 
had  been  one  of  the  governing  class  of  those 
days  I  should  waste  no  time  recording  his  ex- 
periences. But  this  was  a  foe  of  that  govern- 
ing class,  a  fervent  democrat,  one  of  those  that 
helped  to  pull  the  old  structure  of  autocracy 
about  the  ears  of  parasites;  and  to  try  to  put 
such  a  man  to  death  was  mere  homicidal  mania. 
Admiral  Schastny.  This  was  one  of  the 
striking  episodes  of  the  red  story  of  the  Dicta- 


208      BOLSHEVISM  AND  THE  UNITED   STATES 

torship  and  an  apt  illustration  of  the  same  blood 
lust.  He  was  himself  if  not  a  Bolshevic  at  least 
sympathetic  with  the  Bolshevic  ideas.  He  had 
been  in  command  for  the  Bolshevic  government 
of  the  whole  Baltic  fleet,  after  four  years  of 
honorable  service  in  the  war.  At  the  time  of 
the  German  inroad  in  Finland  he  had  shown 
his  capacity  by  saving  two  hundred  Russian 
ships  at  Helsingfors,  and  it  was  probably  due 
to  his  foresight  and  wisdom  that  Russia  had 
any  Baltic  fleet  left.  Some  one  that  did  not  hap- 
pen to  like  him  seems  to  have  accused  him  of 
what  was  called  **  plotting  against  the  Revolu- 
tion,'* a  charge  of  the  most  elastic  consistency. 
It  might  cover  anything  from  failing  to  be  im- 
pressed with  murder  as  a  means  of  grace  to 
blowing  one's  nose. 

He  was  brought  before  the  Revolutionary 
Tribunal  and  tried  on  this  charge.  Mr.  Dumas 
says  that  the  records  of  the  trial  may  be 
searched  in  vain  for  any  evidence  of  his  guilt  * 
and  he  himself  stoutly  denied  the  charge.  Only 
one  witness  appeared  against  him,  the  redoubt- 
able Trotsky,  whom  he  seems  somehow  to  have 
offended,  and  who  arraigned  him  with  such 
vehemence  that  the  prosecutor  was  left  with 


*  La  V6riH  sur  les  Bolsheviki,  p.  127. 


THE   OLD   AUTOCRACY   AND   THE    NEW         209 

nothing  to  say.  Schastny  summoned  witnesse3 
to  his  innocence;  the  Tribunal  refused  to  hear 
them.  He  submitted  documents  from  witnesses 
unable  to  attend  the  trial ;  the  Tribunal  refused 
to  consider  them.  The  accusation  against  him 
was  finally  fixed  at  insubordination  to  the 
orders  of  his  superiors  and  disobedience  to  the 
rules  and  propaganda  of  the  Soviet.  On  these 
charges  he  was  convicted  on  June  21,  1918,  and 
sentenced  to  death. 

The  sentence  was  to  be  carried  out  after 
twenty-four  hours.  The  news  of  it  aroused  even 
the  Social  Revolutionists  of  the  Left,  who  were 
more  or  less  in  sympathy  with  the  government, 
and  the  Central  Committee  of  the  party  sent  to 
the  People's  Commissaries  an  eloquent  protest. 
The  only  result  was  an  order  to  put  Schastny 
to  death  at  once.  The  next  day  the  official  organ 
of  the  government  contained  a  brief  announce- 
ment that  he  had  been  shot. 

Fanny  Roid,  better  known  to  the  world  by  her 
assumed  name  of  Dora  Caplan.  This  was 
another  heroine  of  the  pre-Revolutionary 
struggle,  only  second  in  public  esteem  to  Marie 
Spirodonovo,  Mother  Catherine  and  Dora  Fig- 
ner.  At  the  time  of  the  first  Revolution,  1905, 
when  she  was  nineteen  years,  old,  she  had  tried 
to  assassinate  one  of  those  peculiarly  hateful 


210      BOLSHEVISM   AND  THE   UNITED    STATEC 

officers  of  the  Czar  that  had  developed  an  ex- 
pert taste  for  cruelty.  She  failed  in  her  at- 
tempt and  was  sentenced  to  life  imprisonment 
in  Siberia.  Like  Marie  Spirodonovo  she  passed 
eleven  years  in  one  of  those  hideous  prisons 
that  made  the  very  name  of  Siberia  odious,  and 
was  released  by  the  Revolution  of  March,  1917. 
With  exuberant  joy  she  made  her  way  to 
Petrograd  to  see  achieved  at  last  the  liberty 
for  which  she  had  risked  her  life.  After  the 
Bolshevic  coup  she  began  to  suspect  that  Rus- 
sia had  merely  exchanged  one  kind  of  tyranny 
for  another.  When  the  treaty  of  Brest- 
Litovsk  was  revealed  she  denounced  it  as  a  be- 
trayal of  the  country  and  a  badge  of  shame  and 
servitude.  She  brooded  over  it  for  some  days 
and  then  took  a  pistol  and  tried  to  shoot 
Lenine,  crying: 

**I  wish  to  strike  down  the  hangman  of  Rus- 
sia and  of  Socialism!" 

She  missed  her  mark.  Three  days  later  the 
Isvestia  printed  this  announcement: 

*  *  Last  night  Fanny  Roid  was  shot. ' ' 

That  was  all.  There  was  never  any  record 
of  her  trial,  sentence  or  its  execution.  It  is  not 
known  where  she  was  killed  nor  by  whose  order. 


THE   OLD   AUTOCRACY   AND   THE   NEW         211 

"Last  night  Fanny  Roid  was  shot. "  The  New 
Day  was  more  ferocious  than  the  hated  old  sys- 
tem of  the  Czar. 

In  the  case  of  Admiral  Schastny  the  People's 
Commissaries  refused  to  give  even  his  widow 
any  information  about  him,  to  deliver  his  body 
to  her  or  to  tell  her  where  he  was  buried.  Mr. 
Dumas  says  he  was  put  to  death  without  a 
witness,  without  a  priest  and  without  notice  to 
his  counsel. 

Vladimir  Bourtzeff,  whose  great  services  to 
the  Revolutionary  cause  I  have  mentioned,  was 
arrested  by  the  Bolshevics  and  spent  months 
in  prison.  Chingarev  and  Kokochkine,  after 
being  long  imprisoned  in  Peter  and  Paul,  were 
taken  out  and  shot.  Nicolai  Tschaikowsky,  the 
time  honored  hero,  as  I  have  already  related, 
narrowly  escaped  with  his  life.  Dr.  Nigonov, 
Archanguelsky,  Gabritchevsky  and  many  others 
were  shot. 

In  common  with  many  of  my  countrymen  I 
refused  so  long  as  I  could  to  believe  in  the 
Bolshevic  reign  of  terror.  In  these  days  of  en- 
lightenment and  education  the  utter  folly  of 
such  a  thing,  not  to  mention  its  cruelty  and  sav- 
agery, seemed  impossible.  Men  that  knew 
enough  to  put  together  any  form  of  government 
must  know  enough  history  to  know  that  any 


212      BOLSHEVISM  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES 

form  of  govemment  fonnded  upon  wholesale 
murder  could  not  endure.  Moreover  it  was  to 
be  remembered  that  the  initial  impulse  of  the 
Bolshevics  was,  or  was  declared  to  be,  the  ideal 
of  universal  brotherhood,  good  will  and  peace, 
and  however  fantastic  might  be  their  notions  of 
the  way  to  bring  these  into  being  the  object 
seemed  to  appeal  for  a  withholding  of  judgment. 
Beports  of  Bolshevic  atrocities  were  branded  by 
the  Bolshevic  advocates  in  the  United  States  as 
''capitalistic  lies."  So  long  as  I  could  I  tried 
to  think  that  they  were  even  so.  It  was  obvious 
that  the  beneficiaries  of  the  existing  social  sys- 
tem would  wish  to  have  the  experiment  of  work- 
ing-class government  end  in  wreck,  and  equally 
certain,  as  I  knew  from  long  observation  and 
experience,  that  these  interests  were  able  to  in- 
fluence newspapers  and  to  color  despatches. 
But  the  cumulative  evidence  was  too  great  and 
too  direct ;  in  the  end  it  came  to  be  indubitable 
and  furnished  straight  by  the  Bolshevics  them- 
selves. "While  many  assiduous  and  doubtless 
sincere  advocates  in  America  of  the  Bolshevic 
doctrines  were  denouncing  the  stories  of  slaugh- 
ter as  false,  the  Bolshevics  were  declaring  the 
stories  to  be  true  and  rather  glorying  in  them. 
On  July  31,  1918,  at  a  plenary  meeting  at 
Moscow  of  the  Main  Executive  Committee  of 


THE   OLD   AUTOCRACY   AND   THE   NEW         213 

the  Bolshevic  government,  resolutions  were 
adopted  about  the  policy  that  should  be  fol- 
lowed, and  this  is  one  of  them: 

"Fourth. — Vigilance  must  be  increased 
against  the  bourgeoisie,  who  everywhere  are 
joining  the  counter-revolutionists.  The  Soviet 
government  must  protect  itself,  and  to  that  end 
the  bourgeoisie  must  be  placed  under  control 
and  mass  terror  put  into  practice  against 
them." 

That  is  the  phrase — ''mass  terror."  It  sig- 
nifies the  shooting  down  at  sight  of  anybody 
that  is  or  is  said  to  be  of  an  opinion  different 
from  that  of  the  Proletarian  Dictatorship,  Su- 
preme and  Unassailable. 

''Fifth. — The  general  watchword  must  be 
death  or  victory,  with  mass  expeditions  for 
bread,  mass  military  organization,  the  arming 
of  workmen,  and  the  exertion  of  all  strength  to 
fight  against  the  counter-revolutionary  bour- 
geoisie." 

"Mass  expeditions  for  bread"  were  the 
bands  of  Red  Guards  that  went  out  to  shoot  the 
peasants  and  to  rob  their  granaries. 


214      BOLSHEVISM  AND  THE   UNITED   STATES 

In  a  letter  written  in  December,  1918,  to  Pres- 
ident Wilson  by  Litvinoff,  formerly  Bolshevic 
representative  at  London,  explicit  admission  is 
made  of  the  existence  of  the  Red  Terror,  but 
the  writer  says  that  it  was  a  result  of  the  Allied 
intervention  in  Russia  and  threatens  that  it 
will  increase  in  violence  if  the  intervention  con- 
tinues. The  same  assertion  has  been  made 
repeatedly  in  the  United  States  and  in  some 
measure  still  persists.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
**mass  terror"  was  in  full  operation  before  in- 
tervention was  decided  upon.  One  might  as 
easily  and  as  reasonably  say  that  the  wholesale 
corruption  into  which  the  Dictatorsliip  de- 
scended was  the  result  of  intervention.  Both 
were  equally  the  results  of  the  existing  condi- 
tions. There  had  been  suddenly  thrust  into  the 
control  of  the  huge  machine  of  government 
many  men  without  experience  and  some  without 
character.  Under  the  style  of  government  that 
had  been  adopted  they  were  clothed  with  great 
power  and  had  no  responsibility.  There  never 
has  been  an  instance  where  corruption,  cruelty 
and  oppression  did  not  spring  from  such  con- 
ditions and  there  probably  never  will  be. 

The  rapidly  developing  blood  lust  was 
equally  to  be  expected  by  any  one  acquainted 
with  the  base  facts.    Often  the  men  in  charge 


THE   OLD   AUTOCRACY   AND   THE   NEW         215 

of  affairs  had  brooded  over  what  they  believed 
to  be  tlie  wrongs  of  the  working  class  and  the 
rank  injustice  of  modern  social  conditions 
until  they  had  lost  all  sense  of  perspective.  To 
their  minds  capitalists  that  took  the  fruits  of 
other  men's  labors  were  all  robbers  and  at 
heart  murderers.  The  possession  of  money 
was  proof  that  it  had  been  secured  by  crimes 
against  the  proletariat.  They  felt  and  some- 
times they  reasoned  that  to  shoot  a  bullet 
through  a  man's  head  was  far  less  of  a  murder 
than  to  condemn  him  to  drag  out  his  days  in 
the  horrors  of  a  slum.  In  their  belief  the 
capitalists  had  committed  untold  thousands  of 
murders  of  the  one  sort;  they  had  no  right  to 
complain  now  about  a  few  of  the  other  when 
those  others  were  absolutely  demanded  for  the 
security  of  the  Revolution  and  the  soul  of  the 
Dictatorship.  What  was  the  life  of  any  capi- 
talist compared  with  the  life  of  an  idea  that 
was  to  be  so  beneficial  to  the  producers? 
Moreover,  the  capitalists  in  their  time  of  power 
had  never  shown  any  mercy.  They  had  never 
cared  how  many  poor  wretches  died  of  con- 
sumption or  were  shot  in  a  strike.  The  tables 
were  turned  now;  the  proletariat,  or  the  self- 
appointed  government  erected  in  the  name  of 
the  proletariat,  had  succeeded  to  the  power  the 


216      BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

capitalists  formerly  swayed,  and  there  was  no 
reason  why  it  should  be  any  more  merciful  than 
the  capitalists  had  been. 

But  whenever  we  seek  the  causes  of  the 
phenomena  we  are  returned  to  that  pregnant 
fact  that  here  was  power  exercised  without  re- 
sponsibility and  without  limit.  All  voice  of 
criticism  had  been  stilled  with  the  dragooning 
of  the  press;  even  a  person  that  spoke  to  his 
neighbor  against  the  Dictatorship  was  likely 
to  find  a  file  of  Red  Guards  at  his  door  the 
next  day.  Public  opinion  had  ceased  from  its 
wholesome  function  of  restraint  upon  the  pow- 
erful. Under  such  circumstances  any  other 
results  would  have  been  most  improbable. 
Nothing  is  more  certain  than  that  the  appetite 
for  cruelty  grows  by  what  it  feeds  on.  The  Ex- 
traordinary Committee  to  Combat  the  Counter- 
Revolution  began  by  putting  to  death  men  that 
might  on  fair  grounds  be  suspected  of  counter- 
revolutionary plots;  before  long  it  had  devel- 
oped the  habit  of  putting  to  death  anybody 
that  it  did  not  happen  to  like. 

And  back  of  even  these  powerful  considera- 
tions we  are  to  remember  the  old  regime. 
While  the  typical  Russian  is  capable  of  great 
kindness  and  tenderness,  long  usage  has  also 
possessed   him   of   an   astonishing   hardihood 


THE  OLD  AUTOCRACY  AND  THE  NEW    217 

about  cruelty.  "What  should  you  expect?  The 
Czar's  government  was  the  most  cruel  and 
bloodthirsty  that  has  existed  anywhere  since 
the  Dark  Ages.  We  read  about  the  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  poor  wretches  that  were  driven, 
herded  and  prodded  into  Siberia,  of  the  hor- 
rible beatings,  burnings,  mutilations,  fiendish 
tortures;  we  read  about  the  Revolutionists 
that  dragged  out  a  living  death  in  the  mines 
or  in  that  unforgettable  camp  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Lena  River,  where  their  sufferings  so 
often  drove  them  insane.  We  shudder  over 
these  things  but  do  not  stop  to  think  of  the 
certain  retribution  they  must  involve  nor  of 
their  effect  upon  the  psychology  of  the  people. 
Cruelty,  slaughter  and  bloodshed  were  the 
attributes  of  power  as  they  had  known  it. 
When  power  came  to  the  possession  of  persons 
reared  in  such  an  atmosphere,  filled  with  an 
old  hatred  and  inspired  to  revenge,  what 
would  naturally  happen? 

To  say  then  that  intervention  produced  the 
Terror  is  not  only  to  traverse  every  logical 
probability  but  the  proved  facts  as  well.  I 
have  no  doubt  that  intervention  greatly 
strengthened  the  hands  of  the  Bolshevic  gov- 
ernment, gathering  to  its  support  many  per- 
sons that  otherwise  would  have  opposed  it,  but 


218       BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

the  era  of  cruelty  and  bloodshed  long  ante- 
dated intervention.  As  to  this,  if  we  lacked 
other  testimony  that  supplied  by  the  Bolshe- 
vics  themselves  is  ample  and  convincing.  For 
instance,  at  the  Congress  of  the  Soviets,  held 
in  July,  1918,  before  any  Allied  troops  had 
been  sent  into  Russia,  Sverdloff,  the  president 
of  the  Central  Committee,  made  a  report  which 
ended  with  these  words: 

**We  have  no  intention  to  urge  the  Soviets 
to  moderate,  but  on  the  contrary  we  urge  them 
to  increase  the  Terror,  however  revolting  it 
may  be,  that  it  may  be  greater  instead  of  less. ' ' 

While  the  Red  Cross  was  still  operating  in 
Russia  occurred  one  of  the  pogroms  or  organ- 
ized slaughters  of  the  Social  Revolutionaries. 
This  time  about  three  hundred  of  these  were 
killed  for  no  reason  except  that  they  had,  or 
were  said  to  have,  opinions  against  the  Dicta- 
torship. The  circumstances  were  so  revolting 
that  the  chief  executive  of  the  Red  Cross  in  Rus- 
sia was  moved  to  write  a  letter  of  earnest  re- 
monstrance and  protest  to  Tchitcherine,  one 
of  the  Bolshevic  governing  committee.  Tchi- 
tcherine's  answer  admits  in  the  plainest  terms 
the  killing  of  these  men  and  women,  and  at- 


THE   OLD   AUTOCRACY   AND   THE   NEW         219 

tempts  to  justify  it  on  the  ground  that  wlien 
the  capitalists  were  in  power  they  also  killed 
persons. 

Months  after  that  letter  was  written  fervent 
young  pro-Bolshevists  in  America  were  assert- 
ing that  the  Bolshevics  had  not  put  one 
person  to  death  for  political  reasons  and  that 
the  only  shootings  had  been  of  robbers  and 
bandits.  In  this,  doubtless,  they  were  wholly 
sincere,  being  misled  by  such  assertions  as  that 
of  Litvinoff  to  President  AVilson.  These  errors 
easily  arise.  The  ardent  spirit  will  always  be 
inclined  to  believe  what  is  conformable  to  its 
hopes  and  to  shut  the  mind  to  whatever  is 
inconsistent  therewith.  But  such  an  incomplete 
mental  operation  is  no  good  reason  for  a  gen- 
eral misunderstanding  and  the  facts  about  the 
Red  Terror  ought  not  to  be  obscured  by 
propaganda,  conscious  or  unconscious. 

It  is  also  natural  for  such  sympathizers  with 
the  Bolshevic  experiment  to  denounce  the  or- 
dinary reports  of  Bolshevic  outrage  as  the 
invention  of  the  hostile  American  newspaper. 
I  have,  therefore,  the  more  satisfaction  in  pre- 
senting about  the  Red  Terror  testimony  that 
needs  no  support  and  a  witness  that  no  Bol- 
shevic s^mipathizer  in  America  or  elsewhere 


220      BOLSHEVISM  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES 

will  doubt  or  discredit.  I  summon  the  Bolshevic 
press  of  Russia. 

The  Bolshevic  government  publishes  an  offi- 
cial daily  newspaper  called  the  Severnaia  Com- 
muna,  which  is  in  English,  the  Northern  Com- 
mune. It  has  morning  and  evening  editions. 
In  the  evening  edition  of  September  10,  1918, 
appears  the  following: 

**Jaroslav,  Sept.  9. — In  the  whole  of  the 
Jaroslav  government  [provincel  a  strict  regis- 
tration of  the  bourgeoisie  and  its  partisans  has 
been  organized.  Manifestly  anti-Soviet  ele- 
ments are  being  shot;  suspected  persons  are 
interned  in  concentration  camps;  non-working 
sections  of  the  population  are  subjected  to 
compulsory  labor." 

The  same  issue  contains  also  this: 

"Twer,  Sept.  9. — The  Extraordinary  Com- 
mission has  arrested  and  sent  to  concentration 
camps  more  than  130  hostages  from  among  the 
bourgeoisie.  The  prisoners  include  members 
of  the  Cadet  party  [Constitutional  Democrats], 
Social  Eevolutionists  of  the  Right  [Minimal- 
ists], former  officers,  well-known  members  of 
the  propertied  class  and  policemen." 


THE   OLD   AUTOCRACY   AND   THE    NEW         221 

On  September  19,  the  Commune  printed  a 
report  of  a  speech  delivered  before  a  Bolshevic 
conference  at  Petrograd  from  which  is  taken 
these  remarks: 

**To  overcome  onr  enemies  we  must  have  onr 
own  Socialist  Militarism.  We  must  win  over 
to  our  side  ninety  millions  of  the  one  hundred 
millions  of  population  of  Russia  under  the 
Soviets.  As  to  the  rest,  we  have  nothing  to 
say  to  them;  they  must  be  annihilated." 

In  the  evening  edition  of  the  Northern  Com- 
mune for  September  18,  appears  an  account 
of  a  meeting  of  the  First  District  Soviet  of 
Petrograd  at  which  this  resolution  was 
adopted: 

"The  meeting  welcomes  the  fact  that  mass 
terror  is  being  used  against  the  White  Guards 
and  higher  bourgeois  classes,  and  declares  that 
every  attempt  on  the  life  of  any  of  our  leaders 
will  be  answered  by  the  proletariat  by  shooting 
down  not  only  hundreds,  as  is  the  case  now, 
but  thousands  of  White  Guards,  bankers,  manu- 
facturers and  cadets." 

The  same  issue  contained  the  following  from 
Moscow : 


222      BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

'*By  the  decision  of  the  Extraordinary  Com- 
mittee the  Social  Revolutionary  Firsoff  has 
been  shot.  Firsoff  was  executed  for  writing 
and  distributing  leaflets  in  which  the  Social 
Revolutionaries  invited  workingmen  to  give 
their  allegiance  to  the  Archangel  government.  *  * 

The  morning  issue  of  the  same  newspaper, 
same  date,  contained  this: 

**In  Astrakhan  the  Extraordinary  Committee 
has  shot  ten  Social  Revolutionists  of  the  Right 
involved  in  a  plot  against  the  Soviet  power. 
In  Karamyshev  a  priest  named  Lubimoff  and 
a  deacon  named  Kvintil  have  been  shot  for 
Revolutionary  agitation  against  the  decree 
separating  the  Church  from  the  State  and  for 
an  appeal  to  overthrow  the  Soviet  government. 
In  Perm,  in  retaliation  for  the  assassination  of 
Uritzsky,  [in  Petrograd]  and  the  attempt  on 
Lenine,  fifty  hostages  from  among  the  bour- 
geois classes  and  the  White  Guards  were  shot. 
In  Sebesh  a  priest  named  Kirkevich  was  shot 
for  counter-revolutionary  propaganda  and  for 
having  said  masses  for  the  late  Nicholas 
Romanoff. ' ' 

From  the  Northern  Commune  of  September 


THE   OLD   AUTOCRACY   AND   THE   NEW         223 

16  is  takon  also  this,  relating  an  incident  at 
Borisoglebsk: 

"For  an  attempt  to  organize  a  movement  in 
opposition  to  the  Soviet  power  nine  local 
counter-revolutionaries  were  shot,  namely,  two 
rich  landowners,  six  merchants  and  the  local 
'Com  King'  Vasilev." 

On  September  19,  the  Northern  Commune 
published  this: 

*'The  following  telegram  has  been  received 
from  the  Cavalry  Corps  staff: 

**  'Additional  arrests  have  been  made  in  con- 
nection with  the  affair  of  former  officers  and 
Civil  Service  officials  bribed  by  the  British  and 
involved  in  preparing  a  rising  in  Vologda. 
When  the  plot  was  discovered  they  fled  to 
Archangel  and  to  Murmansk.  The  prisoners 
were  caught  disguised  as  peasants;  all  had 
forged  papers  on  them.  The  political  depart- 
ment of  the  corps  has  in  its  possession  receipts 
for  sums  of  money  received  by  the  arrested 
persons  from  the  British  through  Colonel 
Kurtenkoff.  In  connection  with  this  affair 
fifteen  have  been  shot,  mostly  military  men. 
Among  them  were  General  Astashoff,  Military 


224   BOLSHEVISM  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES 

Engineer  Bodrovolsky,  Captain  Nikitin  and 
two  Socialist  Revolutionaries  of  the  Left — 
Sudotin  and  Tourba.  Apart  from  these  the 
commander  of  the  Expeditionary  Detachment, 
the  sailor  Shimansky,  who  was  not  equal  to  the 
situation,  was  also  shot'  " 

That  is  to  say,  a  sailor,  under  the  system 
of  the  Dictatorship  of  the  Proletariat,  was 
chosen  to  command  the  expedition  of  Bolshevic 
forces,  and  when  he  did  not  prove  ' '  equal  to  the 
situation"  he  was  killed.  The  official  despatch 
of  the  Cavalry  Corps  staff  says  so;  it  is  no 
abominable  falsehood  of  the  lying  American 
press,  it  is  not  a  concoction  of  the  evil-minded 
persons  that  are  trying  to  prejudice  American 
readers  against  an  ideal  democracy.  It  is  the 
veritable  report  of  subordinates  to  their  supe- 
rior officers  in  the  government.  I  am  curious 
to  know  in  what  respect  the  sailor,  who  may 
never  before  have  commanded  anything  more 
important  than  a  marlin  spike,  proved  to  be 
"not  equal  to  the  situation."  If  he  was  not 
equal  to  the  killing  of  the  fifteen  that  were 
shot,  ''mostly  military  men"  (as  the  report 
says  nonchalantly),  his  incompetence  is  under- 
standable. 

The  official  Izvestia  of  October  19  contains 


THE  OLD   AUTOCRACY   AND   THE   NEW         225 

this  item  in  its  account  of  a  meeting  of  the 
Extraordinary  Committee  to  Combat  the 
Counter-Revolution : 

"Comrade  Bokiy  gave  details  of  the  work 
of  the  Petrograd  District  Committee  since  the 
removal  of  the  National  Extraordinary  Com- 
mittee to  Moscow.  The  total  number  of  ar- 
rested persons  was  6220.  Eight  hundred  were 
shot." 

The  Northern  Commune  of  September  12 
printed  this: 

*'Atkarsk,  Sept.  11. — Yesterday  martial  law 
was  proclaimed  in  the  town.  Eight  counter- 
revolutionaries were  shot." 

The  Izvestia  of  November  5  contained  this 
from  Tambov: 

"A  riot  occurred  in  the  Kirsanoff  district. 
The  rioters  shouted  'Down  with  the  Soviets.' 
They  dissolved  the  Soviet  and  the  Committee 
of  the  Village.*     The  riot  was  suppressed  by 

♦The  new  body  of  secret  police  for  domiciliary  visitatioQ 
under  the  Bolshevic  government  sometimes  bore  this  mis- 
leading name.     Sometimes  it  was   called,   not  with  inten- 


226      BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

a  detachment  of  the  Soviet  troops.    The  ease 
is  under  examination." 

The  report  of  arrests  and  shootings  given 
above  refers,  it  should  be  noted,  to  only  the 
Petrograd  District  and  covers  only  a  part  of 
the  time  that  Petrograd  has  been  under  Bol- 
shevic  rule.  To  arrive  at  the  number  of  arrests 
and  shootings  in  all  Russia  we  should  have  to 
multiply  these  figures  many  times.  There  is 
a  National  or  All-Russian  Extraordinary  Com- 
mittee and  then  there  are  local  Extraordinary 
Committees  for  each  town  and  district,  con- 
stituting the  real  government.  The  Petrograd 
Council  is  apparently  willing  to  make  known 
the  totals  of  its  labors.  The  National  Com- 
mittee has  never  imitated  this  frankness.  Its 
reports  are  read  at  secret  meetings.  The 
Izvestia  of  October  17  gives  an  account  of  a 
meeting  of  the  Central  Executive  Council  of  the 
Moscow  Soviet,  in  which  it  says: 

**Then  a  report  was  made  about  the  All- 
Russian  Extraordinary  Committee.     Both  the 


tional  humor,  the  Committee  of  the  Poor.  Its  activities 
seem  to  f^iffor  I'o*-  In  liio  least  from  those  of  the  hateful 
secret  police  of  the  Czar. 


THE  OLD  AUTOCRACY  AND  THE  NEW    227 

report  and  the  discussion  of  it  were  proceeded 
with  in  camara  and  will  not  be  published.  After 
the  debate  the  doors  of  the  Session  hall  were 
reopened  for  the  public. ' ' 

These  star  chamber  proceedings  do  not  al- 
ways meet  with  approval  even  from  fiery 
Bolshevics.  In  the  PraJivda,  the  oldest  of  the 
Bolshevic  organs,  under  date  of  October  8,  ap- 
peared a  letter  from  a  prominent  Bolshevic 
named  Alminsky  in  which  he  says : 

*'The  work  of  the  Extraordinary  Commit- 
tee is  most  responsible  and  calls  for  the 
greatest  restraint  of  their  members.  Do  they 
possess  this  restraint?  Unfortunately,  I  can- 
not discuss  here  whether  and  how  far  all  the 
arrests  and  executions  carried  out  in  various 
places  by  the  Extraordinary  Committees  were 
really  necessary.  On  this  point  there  are  dif- 
ferences of  opinion  in  the  party. 

"The  absence  of  the  necessary  restraint 
makes  one  feel  appalled  at  the  *  instruction' 
issued  by  the  All-Russian  Extraordinary 
Committee  to  'All  Provincial  Extraordinary 
Committees,'  which  says:  'The  All-Eussian 
Extraordinary  Committee  is  perfectly  inde- 
pendent   in    its    work,    carrying    out    house 


228      BOLSHEVISM  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES 

searches,  arrests,  executions,  of  which  it 
afterward  reports  to  the  Council  of  the 
People's  Commissaries  and  to  the  Central 
Executive  Council.'  Further,  the  Provincial 
and  District  Extraordinary  Committees  'are 
independent  in  their  activities,  and  when 
called  upon  by  the  local  Executive  Coun- 
cil present  a  report  of  their  work.'  In 
so  far  as  house  searches  and  arrests  are 
concerned,  a  report  made  afterward  may  re- 
sult in  putting  right  irregularities  committed 
owing  to  lack  of  restraint.  The  same  cannot 
be  said  of  executions.  ...  It  can  also  be  seen 
from  the  *  instruction'  that  personal  safety  is 
to  a  certain  extent  guaranteed  only  to  members 
of  the  government,  of  the  Central  Executive 
Council  and  of  the  local  Executive  Committees. 
With  the  exception  of  these  few  persons  all 
members  of  the  local  committees  of  the  [Bol- 
shevic]  party,  of  the  Control  Committees  and 
of  the  Executive  Committee  of  the  party  may 
be  shot  at  any  time  by  the  decision  of  any 
Extraordinary  Committee  of  a  small  district 
town  if  they  happen  to  be  on  its  territory,  and 
a  report  of  it  made  afterward." 

Shoot  and  ask  questions  afterward.     This 
seems  to  illuminate  the  whole  subject  of  the 


THE  OLD  AUTOCRACY  AND  THE  NEW   229 

Bolshevic  procedure  and  practice  much  better 
than  any  ordinary  description.  "The  same 
cannot  be  said  of  executions,"  observes  Mr. 
Alminsky.  The  only  difference  between  this 
system  and  the  lettres  de  cachet  is  that  this 
is  worse. 

Nicolai  Tschaikowsky,  a  Revolutionist  of  flaw- 
less record  and  a  seasoned  observer  in  many 
lands,  makes  this  deliberate  summary: 

"Bolshevism  is,  regrettably,  not  only  a  Rus- 
sian but  an  international  danger.  It  is  a 
danger  of  an  usurpation  of  the  state  power  by 
an  infinitesimal  minority  of  the  population, 
which,  with  the  help  of  the  armed  forces  of  a 
rebellious  army  and  navy,  compels  the  majority 
to  bow  to  the  will  of  the  leaders  of  a  single 
party  not  recognized  by  the  population  and  not 
elected  by  it  to  rule  the  country.  ...  In  Russia 
this  usurpation  is  the  continuation  of  the  gov- 
ernment with  which  the  Czarist  regime,  in 
peace  time,  held  the  country  in  an  iron  grip 
from  1889  to  1917  with  but  one  short  interval, 
in  1905  to  1906,  during  the  first  Revolution. 
The  Soviet  government  inaugurated  this  same 
regime  after  the  coup  d'etat  of  1917.  From 
then  onward  the  Soviet  government  succeeded 
in  accomplishing  more  crimes  and  more  vio- 


230       BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

lence  than  the  Czarist  government  in  the  whole 
twenty-seven  years  of  its  military  dictator- 
ship. ' ' 

The  Izvestia  of  October  6  says : 

* '  In  Penza  our  comrade  Egoroff  was  killed ; 
152  counter-revolutionaries  were  shot  for  that. ' ' 

It  adds  that  twenty  other  "counter-revolu- 
tionists" mostly  officers  and  priests,  were  shot 
in  Krasnoslobodsk. 

On  this  a  Russian  friend  of  mine  comments 
as  follows: 

"This  makes  a  total  of  172  put  to  death  to 
appease  the  manes  of  Egoroff.  The  Mohicans 
when  they  ranged  the  North  American  forests 
were  satisfied  to  send  along  one  or  two  of  their 
enemies  for  this  purpose;  the  Bolshevics  ap- 
parently have  larger  aims.  It  is  to  be  noted 
that  the  Mohicans  slew  their  enemies  in 
open  fight.  They  did  not  slaughter  helpless 
prisoners." 

**I  am  half  afraid  to  tell  the  truth/'  said 
Arnot  Dosch  Fleurot,  one  of  the  ablest  and 
most  conscientious  newspaper  correspondents 
I  have  ever  known,  "because  of  the  intense 


THE  OLD  AUTOCRACY  AND  THE  NEW    231 

anxiety  it  mnst  aronse  in  the  Allied  nations, 
whose  citizens,  left  behind  in  Petrograd,  are 
in  extreme  peril  of  their  lives."  He  had  just 
made  his  own  escape  and  arrived  at  Stockholm. 

Charles  Dumas,  the  French  author  from 
whom  I  have  quoted  before,  after  his  return 
from  many  months  in  many  Russian  towns  and 
cities,  wrote  a  memorandum,  Russia  wider  the 
Bolshevic  Regime  in  which  he  says:  "It  is  eight 
weeks  since  I  left  Russia  but  I  have  still  be- 
fore my  eyes  the  frightful  things  I  have  seen. ' ' 

From  all  these  witnesses,  many  of  them  Bol- 
shevists, all  of  them  trustworthy,  it  appears 
certain  that  the  cruel  and  wanton  murder  of 
Captain  Cromier,  the  British  military  attache, 
was  but  typical  of  the  spirit  that  possessed  a 
large  part  of  the  Bolshevist  control  and  led  it 
into  act  after  act  that  could  have  no  relation 
to  the  triumph  or  even  the  safety  of  the 
revolt,  but  only  to  an  awakened  thirst  for  mur- 
der on  its  own  account.  The  Russian  writer 
Dioneo  is  evidently  of  that  opinion.  He  esti- 
mates that  the  Terror  has  resulted  so  far  in  the 
killing  of  2,500  officers  alone  in  Kieff ;  in  Yalta, 
1,800;  in  Restov,  3,400;  in  Novo-Tcherkask, 
2,000.  "How  many  persons  were  killed  in  Mos- 
cow, Petrograd  and  Kronstadt,  nobody  knows. 
The  Bolshevics  took  hostages  in  almost  every 
town  in  Russia  and  murdered  many  of  them, 


232      BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

men  and  women,  civilians  and  officers.  Among 
them  were  Generals  Russky  and  Radko  Dmit- 
rieff." 

General  Russky  was  one  of  the  ablest 
and  most  popular  of  the  Russian  commanders. 
He  had  retired  months  before  on  account  of 
ill  health  and  had  no  part  nor  interest  in  Bol- 
shevic  nor  Menshevic.  He  had  been  living  for 
many  weeks  at  a  small  health  resort  in  the 
remote  Caucasus  when  a  body  of  Red  Guards 
hunted  him  out  and  slew  him. 

Among  the  eight  hundred  shot  by  order  of 
the  Petrograd  Committee  were  many  Social- 
ists. Indeed  it  seems  that  the  members  of  the 
Social  Revolutionary  party  were  hunted  and 
killed  with  much  more  pleasure  than  even  the 
bourgeoisie. 

"For  the  murder  of  Uritzky,"  writes  Dioneo, 
**not  only  the  murderer,  Kanegizer,  was  shot, 
but  also  about  1,000  hostages  in  many  towns  of 
Russia.  In  October  150  hostages  were  shot  in 
Penza  because  of  the  murder  of  a  Bolshevic 
prison  warden.  Among  the  murdered  are  not 
only  priests,  merchants,  officers,  teachers,  etc., 
but  also  workmen. '* 

On  July  23  there  assembled  in  Petrograd  a 


THE   OLD   AUTOCRACY   AND   THE   NEW         233 

Labor  Conference  consisting  of  delegates  from 
the  working-class  organizations  of  eleven  im- 
portant cities  of  Russia  called  to  make  ar- 
rangements for  an  All-Russia  Labor  Congress. 
The  meeting  was  held  in  Cooperation  Hall. 
It  had  not  proceeded  long  when  a  file  of  Bol- 
shevic  soldiers  burst  into  the  place  and  arrested 
all  the  delegates  who  were,  without  a  warrant 
or  a  hearing,  thrust  into  jail.  The  Bolshevic 
press  on  July  27  referred  to  the  arrest  as  re- 
sulting from  "a  secret  counter-revolutionary- 
plot  organized  by  well-to-do  people  and  intel- 
lectuals." Beyond  a  doubt  this  is  a  perfect 
specimen  of  the  counter-revolution  that  haunted 
these  minds.  I  do  not  know  how  long  the 
unfortunate  delegates  were  kept  in  prison 
but  they  were  still  there  on  August  7,  when 
they  sent  or  tried  to  send  the  following  protest 
to  the  executive  committees  of  all  Socialist 
parties  of  Europe  and  America: 

''Forty  delegates  elected  by  workmen  of 
various  towns  to  a  conference  for  the  purpose 
of  making  arrangements  for  the  convocation 
of  a  Labor  Congress  have  been  arrested  and 
committed  for  trial  by  the  Supreme  Revolu- 
tionary Tribunal,  created  to  pass  death  sen- 
tences without  the  ordinary  guarantees  of  a 


234      BOLSHEVISM  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES 

fair  trial.  They  are  falsely  and  calumniously 
accused  of  organizing  a  counter-revolutionary 
plot.  Among  the  arrested  are  the  most  promi- 
nent workers  of  the  Social  Democratic  Labor 
movement,  as,  for  instance,  Abramovitch, 
member  of  the  Central  Executive  Committee 
of  the  Russian  Social  Democratic  Labor  party 
and  of  the  'Bund'  [the  Jewish  Socialist  organ- 
ization], who  is  personally  well  known  to  many 
foreign  comrades;  Alter,  member  of  the  Execu- 
tive Committee  of  the  Bund;  Smirnoff,  member 
of  last  year's  Soviet  delegation  to  the  western 
countries;  Vezkaln,  Lettish  Social  Democratic 
party;  Volkoff,  chairman  of  the  Petrograd 
Union  of  Workmen's  Cooperative  Societies; 
Zakharoff,  secretary  of  the  Petrograd  Union  of 
Chemical  Workers,  and  other  prominent  work- 
ers of  the  trade  union  and  cooperative  move- 
ment. 

*'We  demand  immediate  intervention  of  all 
Socialist  parties  to  avert  the  shameful  and 
criminal  proceeding.** 

All  this  was  but  the  literal  execution  of  the 
ideas  of  Lenine  himself.  On  August  20,  1918, 
he  addressed  to  the  American  people  a  letter 
in  which  he  said: 


THE   OLD   AUTOCRACY   AND   THE   NEW        235 

**At  the  time  of  a  revolution  the  struggle 
between  the  classes  has  alwaj-s  and  everywhere 
taken  the  form  of  civil  war  and  civil  war  is 
impossible  without  the  most  frightful  destruc- 
tion and  the  bloodiest  terror.  Only,  those  unc- 
tuous priests,  ecclesiastic  or  lay,  the  Socialist 
hangers-on  around  parliaments  and  salons,  are 
incapable  of  seeing  this  necessity,  of  under- 
standing it  or  of  seizing  it." 

It  was  after  and  in  consequence  of  the  first 
serious  attempt  to  assassinate  Lenine  that  the 
Terror  grew  to  its  worst.  Innocent  men  hun- 
dreds of  miles  from  Moscow  that  could  have 
no  connection  with  the  attempt  and  had  never 
heard  of  it  were  taken  out  and  shot  in  a  wild 
saturnalia  of  revenge.  It  appears  from  the 
Bolshevic  press  that  there  were  indiscriminate 
shootings  at  Kolpina,  at  Jaroslav,  Penza, 
Saratov,  Tver,  Sormovo,  Moscow,  Nijni-Nov- 
gorod,  Kursk,  Tambov,  Orel  and  many  other 
places.  The  slaughters  began  in  the  cities, 
Moscow  being  one  of  the  first,  where  about 
five  hundred  perished.  The  Bolshevist  journal 
Pralivda  reported  this  event  and  intimated  that 
the  provinces  would  do  well  to  follow  the  ex- 
ample set  by  the  metropolis.  The  provinces, 
by  all  reports,  responded  with  great  energy. 


236      BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

One  of  the  worst  records  was  made  at  Kron- 
stadt,  where  a  great  many  naval  officers  were 
still  confined  as  prisoners.  So  far  as  is  known 
no  charges  had  been  made  against  them,  but 
they  were  locked  np  on  general  principles  and 
had  been  for  many  months.  When  the  news  of 
the  attempt  on  Lenine  came  these  officers  were 
summoned  from  their  cells,  stood  in  long  rows 
and  shot  down.  The  terrible  work  continued 
all  night  and  by  morning  nearly  a  thousand 
had  been  put  to  death.  Probably  not  one  in  a 
hundred  knew  why  he  was  to  be  killed. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  dwell  on  the  other 
horrors  that  have  attended  the  civil  war  into 
which  Eussia  has  been  plunged.  Cities  that 
revolt  against  Bolshevic  rule  have  been  taken 
and  sacked  in  the  medieval  manner  and  the 
inhabitants  put  to  the  sword,  but  such  things 
heretofore  have  attended  civil  war.  What  the 
world  is  entitled  to  protest  against  is  the 
slaughter  of  unoffending  persons  that  have 
committed  no  act  against  the  government  and 
are  the  victims  of  spite  or  the  machinations 
of  one  that  covets  their  goods. 

It  has  also  a  right  to  protest  against  the 
introduction  into  modem  society  of  the  idea 
that  the  punishment  of  offenders  against  the 
government  may  include   the  punishment   of 


THE   OLD   AUTOCRACY   AND   THE   NEW         237 

their  relatives.  I  will  not  cite  any  of  the  in- 
stances told  in  the  despatches  of  horrible 
vengeance  executed  upon  the  fathers,  wives 
and  children  of  the  captured  enemies  of  the 
Dictatorship.  These  in  their  details  may  or 
may  not  be  true.  But  what  happened  to  the 
family  of  the  assassin  of  Uritsky  is  well  at- 
tested and  enough.  Not  one  of  these  had  any 
knowledge  of  the  assassin's  plans.  Yet  all, 
including  the  gray-haired  father,  were  sum- 
marily put  to  death  while  the  assassin  himself 
was  subjected  daily  in  the  fortress  of  Peter  and 
Paul  to  the  most  horrible  tortures.  So  long  as 
these  things  happen  the  rest  of  the  world  will 
be  justified  in  its  belief  that  Bolshevism  in 
Russia  represents  not  the  proletariat  but  only 
men  crazed  with  the  taste  of  blood  and  reverted 
to  savagery. 

In  September,  1918,  the  Bolshevic  govern- 
ment arrested  every  relative  of  Kerensky,  near 
or  remote,  and  threw  all  into  prison.  I  hap- 
pen to  know  that  at  the  news  he  was  prostrated 
and  hourly  expected  to  hear  that  all  had  been 
put  to  death.  His  compatriots  in  exile  were 
of  the  same  opinion,  recalling  many  other  in- 
stances where  even  the  cousins  of  proscribed 
men  had  been  killed  on  no  ground  except  their 
relationship  to  him  that  was  hated. 


238      BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

Mr.  Dumas*  cites  from  the  Petrograd  news- 
papers of  March  18,  1918  (after  the  opposition 
press  had  ceased  to  exist),  the  account  from 
Koukloff  of  the  events  in  a  neighboring  village 
where  the  Bolshevics  organized  a  kind  of  St. 
Bartholomew's  Eve,  rose  of  a  sudden  and 
slaughtered  about  five  hundred  of  the  inhab- 
itants. After  which  all  the  stores  and  dwell- 
ings in  the  place  were  looted.  Whole  families 
were  destroyed  in  the  massacre  and  for  three 
days  no  person  was  allowed  to  bury  one  of 
the  bodies.  It  appears  that  in  this  instance 
as  in  so  many  other  similar  outrages  the  Jews 
suffered  most ;  yet  many  of  my  Jewish  friends 
that  formerly  were  wont  to  feel  on  justifiable 
grounds  the  most  bitter  resentment  against  the 
old  Russian  regime  because  it  tolerated  the 
wholesale  murder  of  Jews  have  been  able  to 
trick  themselves  into  some  support  of  a  regime 
at  least  as  intolerant  toward  persons  of  their 
faith. 

Mr.  Dumas  relates  that  when  he  arrived  in 
Petrograd  after  the  Bolshevic  system  was  in 
full  swing  he  went  to  call  upon  three  friends 
of  his  in  the  city,  but  knocked  in  vain  at  their 
doors.     He  found  that  two  had  gone  insane 


*  La  Y6rit6  stir  les  Bolsheviki,  p.  125. 


THE   OLD   AUTOCRACY   AND   THE   NEW         239 

from  the  horror  and  one  liad  cut  his  throat 
with  a  razor. 

"And  to-day,"  he  continues,  "there  are  those 
that  attempt  to  put  upon  the  Allied  interven- 
tion the  responsibility  for  the  Red  Terror.  I 
cannot  allow  that  perversion  of  history  to  pass 
unchallenged.  Bolshevism  had  already  erected 
as  a  permanent  institution  its  reign  of  terror; 
it  had  made  massacre  a  part  of  its  system  of 
government.  I  have  seen  with  my  own  eyes, 
under  my  own  window,  at  the  time  of  the 
breaking  up  of  the  Constituent  Assembly, 
groups  of  workingmen  and  pacifists  shot  down 
as  they  advanced  peaceably  singing.  I  have 
seen  on  the  pavements  the  agonies  of  the  dying. 
Massacres  became  the  rule  when  the  Bolshevics 
gained  the  mastery.  I  remind  you  of  the 
atrocities  at  Sebastopol  in  March,  1918,  and  the 
fearful  resolution  of  the  sailors  there,  excited 
by  the  Bolshevist  journals,  to  cut  the  throats 
of  all  the  inliabitants  more  than  five  years 
old." 

At  the  close  of  December  the  Izvestia,  organ 
of  the  Petrograd  Bolshevics,  printed  the  state- 
ment that  the  total  number  of  persons  put  to 
death  in  Russia  since  the  beginning  of  Bol- 


240      BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

shevic  rule  to  date  was  14,208 — outside  of  Pet- 
rograd  and  Moscow.  I  do  not,  of  course,  pre- 
tend to  judge  of  the  accuracy  of  these  figures, 
though  the  authority  seems  unquestionable,  and 
I  cannot  guess  the  probable  number  of  persons 
killed  in  the  two  great  cities,  which  should  be 
added  to  Izvestia's  figures.  It  appears  on  re- 
peated testimony  that  the  population  of  Mos- 
cow, which  was  once  about  1,700,000,  is  now 
less  than  1,000,000,  and  that  Petrograd,  which 
when  I  knew  it  had  a  population  of  2,200,000, 
has  now  not  700,000  inhabitants.  These  decreases 
afford  no  trustworthy  indication  of  the  extent 
of  the  shootings,  as  great  numbers  of  people 
have  fled  from  both  cities  and  thousands  upon 
thousands  have  perished  of  epidemics,  starva- 
tion and  the  cold.  But  as  to  the  existence  of 
the  Terror  as  a  general  and  effective  proposi- 
tion, and  as  to  whether  its  operations  can 
justly  be  termed  mere  ''excesses"  I  should 
think  the  testimony  of  the  official  Izvestia  must 
be  accepted  as  fairly  conclusive. 

There  is  a  summary  of  the  situation  in  the 
open  letter  that  the  members  of  the  Social 
Revolutionary  party  wrote  in  early  December, 
1918,  to  Jean  Longuet,  the  editor  of  the  Paris 
Socialist  journal,  Le  Populaire.  A  grandson 
of   Karl   Marx,   known   in   Paris    as   ''Quart- 


THE    OLD   AUTOCRACY   AND   THE   NEW         241 

Boclie,"  a  professed  pacifist  and  practical  de- 
featist, Longnet  was  in  effect  the  Bolshevic  rep- 
resentative in  Paris.  It  was  through  him  that 
the  Bolshevic  government  communicated  with 
the  Peace  Conference,  and  in  the  columns  of  his 
journal  Bolshevism  was  at  all  times  sure  of  at 
least  one  devoted  champion.  I  quote  some  ex- 
tracts from  the  letter  of  protest: 

**In  expressing  admiration  of  the  Bolshevics 
you  say  you  regret  only  one  thing,  'that  there 
is  no  unity  between  the  Socialist  forces  of 
Russia'  and  that  'certain  excesses'  have  been 
committed.  To  that  you  hasten,  however,  to 
add  that  the  Press  has  certainly  much  exag- 
gerated these  excesses,  that  it  has  shown  itself 
too  sensitive  in  respect  of  a  'few  drops  of  bour- 
geois blood'  which  have  fallen  at  Moscow  and 
Petrograd. 

"You  speak  of  your  regrets.  We  also  have 
some  bitter  regrets.  But  not  solely  because 
our  Socialist  forces  lack  unity,  so  necessary  at 
this  historic  moment,  and  consciousness  of  the 
immense  danger  that  threatens  our  country. 
The  bitterness  of  our  regret  grows  at  the 
thought  of  Socialists,  who  have  sacrificed  so 
much  in  the  struggle  against  Czarism  and  for 
Socialism  being  denounced  by  the  Bolshevics 


242      BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

as  'enemies  of  the  people'  and  being  driven 
afresh  to  clandestine  labor  [agitation]  and 
being  thrown  into  prison  and  shot. 

* '  The  blood  of  which  you  speak  with  so  much 
indifference  is  sacred  to  us.  It  is  the  blood 
of  the  peasant  Logvinov,  a  member  of  the  Peas- 
ants' Council;  of  the  workman  Eremeev;  of  the 
Social  Revolutionary  Grabritchevsky ;  and  of  so 
many  others  that  fell  on  January  5,  the  day  of 
the  convocation  of  the  Constituent  Assembly, 
by  the  bullets  of  the  Red  Guards.  It  is  the  blood 
of  the  Social  Revolutionaries,  Dr.  Nigonov  and 
Arkhanguelsky,  who  fell  during  the  firing  by 
the  Bolshevics  on  the  prisoners  in  the  gaol  of 
Simferopol.  It  is  the  blood  of  those  who  were 
shot  at  Kolpina,  at  Sormovo,  at  Jaroslav,  at 
Penza,  at  Tver,  at  Moscow,  at  Saratov. 

''You  know  all  that  and  yet  you  allow  anony- 
mous writers  to  affirm  in  your  journal  that 
the  Bolshevics  achieved  power  'without  the 
shedding  of  blood.' 

"Your  journal  tries  to  make  the  French  peo- 
ple believe  that  the  dissolution  of  the  Constitu- 
ent Assembly  has  been  the  purely  logical  conse- 
quence of  affairs.  Soon  you  will  say  it  dissolved 
itself. 

"Had  it  been  so,  why  was  it  necessary  to 
collect  at  the  Tauride  Palace  [where  the  As- 


THE   OLD   AUTOCRACY   AND   THE   NEW         243 

sembly  met]  thousands  of  sailors  armed  to  the 
teeth — not  forgetting  hand  grenades? 

"Why  was  it  necessary  to  transform  Petro- 
grad  into  an  armed  camp?  Why  were  cruisers 
brought  up  to  Petrograd?  Why  were  demon- 
strators shot? 

"The  Constituent  Assembly  was  dissolved  by 
means  of  violence,  and  that  was  a  logical  se- 
quence of  the  fact  that  the  Bolshevics  denied 
democracy  and  parliamentarianism. 

"Do  not  try  to  make  the  contrary  believed; 
the  Bolshevics  themselves  proclaim  it  openly. 

"We  know  that  you  are  aware  of  Lenine's 
speech  to  the  workmen  of  the  Mikhelsov  factory 
before  the  attempt  on  his  life.  In  this  address 
the  Socialist  leader  [Lenine]  tells  the  prole- 
tariat to  disabuse  their  minds  of  the  illusions 
of  a  democratic  republic  and  of  the  Constituent 
Assembly,  citing  in  support  France,  England, 
and  even  America,  where  the  whole  people  is 
reduced  to  slavery,  asserting  that  'in  the  places 
where  democrats  dominate,  pillage  is  real,  not 
masked.'  " 

The  letter  concludes  with  a  question  that  in 
all  seriousness  we  may  well  put  to  ourselves, 
"Is  tyranny  when  it  bears  the  name  of  the 


244      BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

proletariat  less  bitter,  less  unsupportable  for 
any  people?" 

Surely  it  is  against  the  fact  of  tyranny  that 
mankind  has  struggled  and  not  because  the 
tyrannous  supremacy  happened  to  be  in  the 
hands  of  a  class  of  one  name  rather  than  in  a 
class  of  another. 

*'We  have  exchanged  an  autocracy  of  scoun- 
drels," says  Maxim  Gorky,  *'for  an  autocracy 
of  savages." 

Wherein  can  one  be  preferable  to  the  other? 


CHAPTER  X 

IN    THE    TEST    TUBE    OF    PRACTICE 

So  many  of  these  lesions  opened  in  the 
Lenine  scheme  of  government  that  before  long 
he  began  to  appear  always  more  complex  and 
puzzling.  There  were,  assuredly,  developments 
that  showed  him  to  be  more  formidable  in 
imagination  than  in  judgment;  whereas  in  a 
cold,  methodical  mentality  like  his,  who  would 
expect  to  find  an  overbalancing  imagination? 
Some  of  the  lapses,  it  is  not  to  be  denied,  were 
unaccountable  in  one  of  his  philosophical  fore- 
grounds. As,  for  instance,  he  desired  to  erect 
a  government  without  democracy  in  which  the 
head  or  ruler  should  achieve  his  own  choosing 
by  grace  of  his  superior  gifts,  personal  fitness 
and  devotion  to  the  proletariat.  It  was  in  this 
fashion  that  he  made  himself  Commissary  of 
Commissaries  and  chief  of  the  new  state.  But 
he  must  have  known  that  of  men  of  genius  thus 
able  to  force  themselves  into  and  hold  positions 
of  power  there  appears  hardly  one  in  a  genera- 

245 


246      BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED  STATES 

tion.  No  one  can  well  doubt  that  he  himself 
is  of  that  order,  but  his  own  prognosis  of  his 
work  shows  him  about  to  be  martyred  for  the 
cause  and  he  must  have  known  that  in  all  Rus- 
sia there  was  not  one  man  capable  of  repeating 
his  exploit.  Suppose  him  to  be  killed,  as  he 
expected  to  be.  A  head  must  be  chosen  for  the 
Bolshevic  sovereignty.  He  had  abolished  the 
ballot  box  as  an  instrument  of  government;  by 
what  means  then  should  the  choice  be  made? 
He  must  have  known  that  without  democratic 
election  or  without  the  duplication  of  himself 
and  of  the  conditions  that  made  his  triumph 
possible,  the  only  way  would  be  by  civil  war, 
of  which  the  outcome  must  be  at  best  far  away 
and  doubtful.  No  imagination  could  suggest 
any  other  exit  from  such  a  difficulty ;  it  must  be 
either  free  elections  or  the  sword,  and  he  had 
put  elections  into  the  discard. 

Likewise  it  seems  strange  that  he,  a  Russian 
and  one  of  the  greatest  of  his  nation,  should 
have  been  able  to  believe  the  Russian  peo- 
ple as  a  whole  willing  to  exchange  one  form 
of  tyranny  for  another  or  that  the  militarism 
of  the  Red  Army  would  be  more  to  their  taste 
than  the  militarism  of  the  old  regime  they  had 
overthrown.  Yet  it  was  solely  by  means  of  such 
militarism  that  he  continued  to  rule.    He  had 


IN  THE  TEST  TUBE  OF  PRACTICE     247 

disarmed,  so  far  as  he  could,  all  the  population 
except  the  Bolshevics.  The  search  for  arms 
had  been  conducted  with  great  energy  and  often 
with  bloody  cruelty.  The  Red  Guards  called  at 
each  household  and  inquired  about  arms. 
Whatever  the  dwellers  in  that  house  might  say 
the  verbal  examination  was  followed  by  a  strict 
search  of  the  premises.  If  this  revealed  any 
weapons  the  head  of  the  family  was  immedi- 
ately shot.  A  good  Russian  friend,  one  of  the 
escaped  leaders  of  the  Social  Revolutionary 
party,  has  given  me  a  vivid  description  of  the 
searching  of  his  house.  He  had  a  revolver 
hidden  behind  the  wainscoting  and  stood  watch- 
ing the  searchers  as  they  bored  holes  in  that 
wainscoting  mthin  two  inches  of  the  revolver. 
They  did  not  find  it  and  with  it  in  his  pocket 
he  started  that  night  for  the  border,  which  he 
reached  in  eleven  nights  of  wandering.  His 
next-door  neighbor  was  not  so  fortunate.  The 
searchers  found  in  his  house  an  old  musket  and 
shot  him  on  his  door-step. 

It  is  because  the  Bolshevics  have  rifles  at 
their  back  and  the  rest  of  the  population  have, 
as  a  rule,  only  their  bare  hands;  and  because, 
second,  their  opponents,  being  deprived  of  elec- 
tions and  a  press,  have  no  moral  weapons,  that 
the  minority  of  the  people  of  Russia  have  been 


248      BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

able  to  rule  the  great  majority.  This  point  is 
not  well  understood  in  this  country  and  cannot 
be  in  any  democracy.  According  to  all  our 
ideas,  the  fact  that  there  is  a  general  assembly 
and  that  one  party  has  been  in  power  eighteen 
months  shows  that  the  people  must  support  that 
power.  It  is  not  the  people  that  support  it  but 
the  guns  of  the  Red  Guards,  now  estimated  at 
about  500,000  men,*  and  the  fact  that  only  the 
Red  Guards  and  the  Bolshevics  can  carry  arms. 
But  every  impartial  mind  knows  well  enough 
that  these  conditions  cannot  endure  in  a  country 
like  Russia.  If  the  Czar's  tyranny,  far  better 
equipped,  far  more  powerful,  far  better  man- 
aged, and  having  the  great  advantage  that  in 
some  fashion  it  fed  the  people,  if  this  could  not 
continue  to  maintain  itself  upon  them,  be  sure 
that  a  new  and  lame  autocracy,  that  feeds 
only  selected  groups  and  the  Red  Guards,  will 
not  long  persist.  In  spite  of  the  lack  of  weap- 
ons, munitions,  supplies,  the  majority  are  con- 
tinually rising  against  the  usurping  minority. 
No  sooner  have  the  Red  Guards  ruthlessly  shot 


♦This  includes  Chinese  and  Buriat  mercenaries,  whose 
strength  in  the  Lenine  army  is  variously  estimated.  The 
most  deliberate  among  the  refugees  in  Paris  think  there 
are  more  than  100,000  of  these  hired  soldiers  serving  the 
Dictatorship. 


IN  THE  TEST  TUBE  OF  PRACTICE     249 

to  death  a  revolt  in  one  quarter  than  they  must 
be  hurried  to  meet  revolt  in  another.  The  news- 
paper the  Jizn  of  May  24,  1918,  contained  this 
illuminating  item : 

''Events  have  begnn  to  happen  at  Savatoff. 
On  May  16  the  soldiers  of  the  Eed  Army  re- 
volted against  the  authority  of  the  Soviets.  On 
the  17tli  parleys  took  place.  On  the  18th  the 
battle  was  renewed  with  rifles,  machine  guns 
and  cannon.  At  Louka  the  town,  has  been  de- 
clared in  a  state  of  siege  following  anti-Bol- 
shevic  demonstrations.  At  Kostroma,  May  23, 
the  three  factories  were  closed  and  the  workers 
in  a  meeting  passed  a  resolution  against  Bol- 
shevic  rule.  On  the  same  date  came  the  news 
that  in  all  the  districts  of  Moloka  the  peasants 
have  suppressed  the  Soviet  cantonments  and 
that  there  are  insurrections  in  the  governments 
[provinces]  of  Moscow,  Nijni-Novgorod,  Tver, 
Kastrome,  and  Smolensk.  The  demonstrations 
of  the  people  in  many  regions  have  taken  on  a 
savage  character,  and  there  have  been  attempts 
to  burn  the  Soviets,  as  was  done  at  Pavlovsk." 

The  workers  were  continually  protesting  and 
their  dissatisfaction  has  not  ceased  to  grow.  On 
March  14,  1918,  a  meeting  was  held  of  the  em- 


I 


250       BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

ployees  in  one  of  the  largest  cliemical  factories. 
Many  speakers  vehemently  criticized  the  policy 
of  the  Council  of  Commissaries.  The  authori- 
ties ordered  the  meeting  to  disperse.  The  work- 
ers refused  to  be  intimidated.  Whereupon  the 
Eed  Guards  fired  upon  the  assembly,  killing 
a  few  of  its  members  and  wounding  many. 

On  April  2,  1918,  a  meeting  was  called  of  the 
railroad  workers  in  the  districts  of  Moscow, 
Penza  and  Kasan,  which  passed  many  resolu- 
tions making  these  demands: 

1.  Immediate  convocation  of  the  Constituent 
Assembly. 

2.  Re-establishment  of  all  the  dissolved  or- 
ganizations that  ensured  the  autonomy  of  the 
zemstvos. 

3.  Cessation  of  the  civil  war. 

4.  Ee-establishment  of  the  freedom  of  speech, 
freedom  of  the  press,  and  of  the  inviolability 
of  the  person  and  of  the  home. 

These  resolutions  were  carried  unanimously. 

On  May  16,  the  workers  of  Sormovo,  near 
Nijni-Novgorod,  by  a  majority  of  about  10,000 
votes  to  50,  adopted  a  resolution  condemning 
the  policy  of  the  government  and  demanding 
the  calling  of  a  Constituent  Assembly.  The  next 


IN   THE   TEST   TUBE   OF   PRACTICE  251 

day  a  strike  was  declared,  presumably  to  en- 
force this  declaration.  It  was  ended  uitli  the 
shooting  of  strikers. 

At  Jaroslav  the  local  Soviet  of  workiiigmen 
was  dissolved  by  order  of  the  superior  govern- 
ment and  all  members  that  were  of  the  Menshe- 
vics  and  the  Social  Revolutionaries  were 
arrested.  When  the  Soviet  was  allowed  to  be  re- 
elected not  a  seat  Avas  won  by  a  Bolshevic. 

Mr.  Dumas  gives  the  abstract  of  a  resolution 
of  protest  voted  by  ninety-three  delegates  rep- 
resenting twenty-five  factories  of  Petrograd : 

* '  The  heads  of  the  new  government  promised 
us  to  uphold  our  interests.  In  behalf  of  this 
government  our  brothers  and  our  sons  have 
poured  out  their  blood.  We  have  endured  hun- 
ger and  privations,  the  loss  of  our  liberties  and 
the  part  suppression  of  our  rights. 

''Four  months  have  passed  and  we  see  only 
that  our  ideals  have  been  dragged  in  the  dirt 
and  not  one  promise  has  been  realized.  At  the 
least  expression  of  a  desire  on  our  part  to  re- 
elect or  re-establish  the  Soviet  of  the  workers 
and  peasants  our  meetings  are  dispersed  under 
the  menace  of  rifles. 

''The  Soviet  of  the  workers  and  peasants 
promised  for  us  a  peace  just  and  equitable, 


252      BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

made  through  the  people,  and  we  see  now  that 
this  peace  is  a  shameful  surrender  to  German 
capitalism.  They  have  given  us  a  peace  that 
breaks  forever  the  working-class  movement. 

"They  have  promised  us  bread,  and  never 
has  famine  been  greater  or  more  severe  in  Rus- 
sia. They  have  given  us  a  civil  war  that  is 
ruining  the  country. 

**It  is  the  epoch  of  bribery,  shameful  specula- 
tion and  monopolies. 

"Our  Committees  no  longer  exist. 

*  *  In  leaving  Petrograd  the  Soviet  has  left  us, 
the  workers,  without  protection,  without  help, 
closing  the  factories,  throwing  us  upon  the 
streets  without  money,  without  bread,  without 
work,  without  means  of  defense  and  without 
hope  for  the  future. 

"The  Soviet  promised  the  freedom  of  the 
press  and  of  assembly  and  we  have  neither  the 
one  nor  the  other.  We  live  in  the  age  of  the  guil- 
lotine, of  wholesale  shootings  and  of  the  spies 
that  are  at  the  same  time  the  hangmen.  And 
it  is  for  this  that  the  blood  flowed,  for  this  that 
the  Constituent  Assembly  was  dissolved;  for 
this  that  so  many  men  have  been  deported  to 
Siberia,  hanged,  or  imprisoned ;  for  this  that  so 
many  lives  have  been  sacrificed." 


IN   THE   TEST  TUBE   OF   PRACTICE  253 

Even  the  Social  Democratic  party,  of  one 
wing  of  which  Lenine  was  the  old-time  leader, 
turned  against  him  and  was  proclaimed  by  his 
government  a  public  enemy.  The  Social  Revo- 
lutionary party,  as  we  have  seen  in  a  previous 
chapter,  w^as  expressly  nominated  in  the  decrees 
as  so  obnoxious  that  its  publications  were  sub- 
ject to  a  ruinous  tax.  For  a  time  the  Social 
Revolutionaries  of  the  Left  (extreme  radicals) 
attempted  to  go  along  with  the  new  order. 
Gradually  most  of  them  fell  away  and  some 
were  imprisoned  for  candid  opposition  to  the 
government.  It  is  entirely  likely  that  for  every 
adherent  Lenine  lost  in  this  way  he  gained  one 
from  the  Anarchist  element,  always  consider- 
able in  Russia,  or  from  the  order  of  mind  that 
was  attracted  into  the  Red  Guard  service.  I 
think  the  nature  of  this  service  has  been  suffi- 
ciently indicated. 

In  truth,  the  defects  in  the  Lenine  philosophy 
were  structural  and  incurable ;  how^ever  inviting 
his  basic  proposition  might  seem  at  first,  no  im- 
partial mind  that  should  weigh  it  deliberately 
could  fail  to  see  that  it  was  hopeless.  Admit- 
ting the  whole  of  his  first  article  of  faith  con- 
cerning the  importance  of  production  and  the 
producer ;  admitting  also  his  unselfish  desire  to 
right  existing  wrongs  and  better  the  producer 's 


254       BOLSHEVISM  AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

economic  state,  there  was  always  the  glaring 
fact  that  factory  workers  are  not  the  only  pro- 
ducers, and  a  man  that  in  production  handles 
a  hoe  is  as  valuable  to  society  as  the  man  that 
handles  a  hammer.  In  many  great  manufac- 
turing centers  of  Europe  and  America  factory 
'workers  may  be  conceived  of  as  bearing  the 
v^^orst  phases  of  the  general  social  injustice. 
But  this  is,  after  all,  a  local  condition.  All  labor 
suffers  wrong.  The  kind  of  labor  that  suffers 
most  wrong  varies  according  to  industrial  de- 
velopments and  geographical  facts.  He  would 
be  a  bold  man  that  would  say  that  the  worst 
paid  factory  workers  of  Europe  or  America  are 
in  any  worse  state  than  the  ryots  of  India  or  the 
coolies  of  Japan.  The  idea  that  we  can  relieve 
the  general  labor  burden  by  making  of  one  class 
of  workers  a  despotism  over  the  rest  would 
hardly  seem  anything  for  reasoning  men  to  de- 
bate, but  to  exactly  this  proposal  the  whole  of 
Lenine's  philosophy  was  reduced  when  it  came 
to  be  put  into  practice. 

Student,  thinker  and  most  able  writer  as  he 
unquestionably  is,  it  must  be  that  he  is  incapa- 
ble of  understanding  the  greatest  study  of  all, 
which  is  human  nature,  in  its  emotions  essen- 
tially the  same  yesterday,  to-day  and  forever. 
I  am  quite  ready  to  admit  that  he  believed  sin- 


IN   THE   TEST  TUBE   OF   PRACTICE  255 

cerely  the  launching  of  his  scheme  would  arouse 
the  proletariat  of  all  the  world  to  rise  against 
its  capitalistic  exploiters,  but  that  does  not  ex- 
plain how  he  ever  managed  to  live  fifty  years  in 
the  world  and  learn  so  little  about  it.  Men  are 
not  led  to  revolt  in  any  such  way.  A  great  deal 
more  is  required  than  a  summons  from  Sim- 
birsk, however  loud  and  eloquent  that  may  be. 
Systems  rock  rooted  in  centuries  of  development 
are  not  overthrown  with  shouting.  He  is  said 
by  some  of  his  Russian  friends  to  have  been 
greatly  cast  down  because  the  first  clarion  of 
the  Russian  Bolshevics  was  not  heeded  by  the 
proletariat  around  the  world.  If  he  had  known 
man  and  his  history,  instead  of  being  cast  down 
he  would  have  been  elated.  For  the  kind  of  an 
uprising  Bolshevism  wanted,  if  it  were  pos- 
sible (which  it  never  was),  could  have  meant 
nothing  but  vast  chaos  and  primordial  night  out 
of  which  after  centuries  man  would  emerge  and 
begin  once  more  the  slow  ascent  back  to  the 
place  he  had  gained  before. 

There  was  also  another  consideration  that 
one  would  have  thought  most  apparent  to  any 
student  of  history.  Admitting  Lenine's  asser- 
tion that  the  workingmen  in  democratic  coun- 
tries do  not  as  yet  make  wise  use  of  the  power 
they  have  in  the  ballot  box,  it  is  perfectly  clear 


256      BOLSHEVISM   AND  THE   UNITED  STATES 

that  they  are  always  making  better  and  better 
use  of  it  and  that  in  it  they  have  a  potentiality 
greater  than  would  be  conferred  upon  them  by 
any  armed  revolt.  The  obvious  part  of  wisdom 
then,  to  anybody  sincerely  interested  in  their 
welfare  and  progress,  was  to  further  the  wise 
use  of  the  power  they  had  and  not  the  cutting 
of  their  exploiters '  throats.  No,  nor  an  attempt 
to  set  up  a  form  of  society  belonging  to  the  in- 
fancy of  human  development.  An  American 
workingman  once  remarked  that  there  were  in 
this  world  only  two  possible  styles  of  govern- 
ment. One  was  an  absolute  despotism  with  God 
as  the  despot  and  the  other  an  absolute  democ- 
racy. Nothing  between  these  two  could  possibly 
endure  in  a  civilization  wherein  the  only  cele- 
brated or  remembered  achievements  were  con- 
nected with  the  long,  slow  but  always  advancing 
struggle  for  freedom.  He  was  wiser,  that  work- 
ingman, than  the  learned  student  of  Simbirsk. 
Not  in  the  teachings  of  the  text  books,  very 
likely,  but  in  the  only  book  that  really  counts 
much,  the  book  of  books,  which  is  the  heart  of 
man.  He  would  have  known  that  the  race  did 
not  win  its  way  all  these  centuries  from  tyranny 
to  the  dawn  of  true  democracy  to  turn  back  now 
to  medieval  tyranny.  He  would  also  have 
known    that    class    domination    is    as    surely 


IN  THE  TEST  TUBE  OF  PRACTICE     257 

doomed  and  outworn  as  king  domination,  no 
matter  which  class  shall  attempt  to  exercise  it. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Lenine  and  his 
friends  had  placed  great  hope  upon  a  general 
Bolshevic  uprising  at  the  end  of  the  war.  The 
disclosure  of  the  plot  they  had  laid  in  Holland 
shows  how  far  they  were  ready  to  go  in  whole- 
sale murder  and  arson.  Doubtless,  also,  they 
had  expected  great  things  in  Germany.  A  small 
part  of  the  German  working  class  they  suc- 
ceeded in  luring  into  the  so-called  Spartacus 
movement.  The  desperate  nature  of  the  infat- 
uation may  be  gaged  from  the  furious  attacks 
of  handfuls  of  Spartacans  upon  the  popularly 
constituted  governments  in  Berlin,  Hamburg 
and  Diisseldorf.  But  when  the  German  masses 
rose  not  for  Bolshevism  but  against  it  and  when 
they  put  to  death  the  unfortunate  man  and 
woman  that  had  most  favored  the  new  faith, 
they  automatically  disposed  of  the  idea  that  the 
Kussian  Bolshevists  had  anything  to  do  with 
the  revolt  that  drove  the  Kaiser  from  the  throne 
or  any  share  in  bringing  the  war  to  an  end. 

But  the  true  way  to  combat  Bolshevism  is  not 
with  guns,  after  the  manner  of  Berlin,  Ham- 
burg and  the  Allied  intervention.  It  has  been 
proved  many  times  that  the  soil  in  which  Bol- 
shevism takes  the  readiest  root  is  a  soil  over- 


258      BOLSHEVISM  AND  THE   UNITED  STATES 

shadowed  with  famine.  If  Russia  were  healed 
of  its  economic  distress  she  would  be  healed  at 
the  same  time  of  Bolshevism.  The  only  inva- 
sion that  would  do  any  good  now  is  an  invasion 
with  bread  wagons.  It  is  much  easier  and 
cheaper  to  choke  Bolshevism  with  food  than  to 
shoot  it  to  death.  Appalling  as  are  the  results 
of  Bolshevism  it  gives  the  rest  of  the  world  no 
excuse  to  interfere  forcibly  in  the  internal 
affairs  of  Russia. 

Provided  only  there  is  to  be  no  Bolshevic 
tidal  wave  sweeping  away  the  foundations  of 
civilized  Europe,  consider  that  at  least  four 
forces  are  already  at  work  to  destroy  the  Rus- 
sian Bolshevic  structure: 

1.  The  mere  fact  that  the  majority  of  the 
people  are  against  it. 

2.  That  it  has  failed  to  carry  on  the  functions 
of  an  organized  social  state. 

3.  That  being  incapable  of  organizing  com- 
munication it  shuts  Russia  from  any  relations 
with  the  rest  of  the  world  with  which  Russia 
must  have  dealings  or  die. 

4.  That  the  essential  Russian  character  is 
committed  to  democracy  and  determined  to 
have  it. 

We  may  well  doubt  if  the  artillery  of  the 


IN   THE   TEST   TUBE    OF   PRACTICE  259 

Allies  is  any  power  comparable  with  the  power 
contained  in  these  facts. 

Good  will,  patience,  kindness,  the  unselfish 
purpose  to  relieve  distress  and  help  the  needy 
are  stronger  than  armed  battalions.  In  the 
spring  of  1919  about  one-half  of  Europe  was 
starving  or  living  within  sight  of  the  grim 
famine  specter.  By  no  possiblity  could  there 
be  better  conditions  for  trouble. 

Two  things  were  imperatively  demanded  for 
the  world's  safety,  that  these  people  should  be 
fed  and  that  their  aspirations  for  a  better  civili- 
zation to  come  out  of  the  war  should  be  grati- 
fied. The  masses  of  mankind,  sick  of  war  and 
its  horrors,  sick,  without  formulating  the  fact, 
of  the  conditions  that  produce  war,  yearned  for 
some  definite  and  tangible  advance  that  would 
make  impossible  a  recurrence  of  the  horrors  of 
those  four  years.  Not  a  suspicion  of  this  tre- 
mendous fact  seems  to  have  penetrated  the 
minds  of  the  ruling  classes  of  Europe.  They 
but  sat  them  dowoi  when  the  war  was  over  to 
apportion  spoils  and  gains  and  the  masses  of 
the  people  chafed  and  fretted  unobserved. 

There  was  one  nation  in  a  position  to  meet 
on  both  its  sides  the  emergency  that  thus  con- 
fronted mankind.  The  United  States  of  Amer- 
ica could  supply  the  material  assistance  needed ; 


260      BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

if  it  would  practise  for  the  sake  of  preserving 
peace  the  economy  and  self-denial  and  put  forth 
the  energy  it  showed  for  the  sake  of  carrying 
on  the  war,  it  could  keep  Europe  from  starving. 
If  it  would  arise  to  its  moral  opportunities  it 
could  give  the  spiritual  relief  Europe  demanded 
no  less  than  the  material.  The  spectacle  at 
such  a  juncture  of  so  many  American  statesmen 
apparently  convinced  not  only  that  America 
had  no  part  to  play  in  the  tremendous  world 
crisis  but  that  there  was  no  crisis  and  nothing 
to  divert  us  from  our  old-time  preoccupations 
of  profits  and  more  profits,  was  not  exhilarating 
but  truly  what  we  might  have  expected  from  the 
isolation  from  Europe  and  its  affairs  that  we 
had  conscientiously  preferred. 


CHAPTER  XI 


A  CLOUD   OF   WITNESSES 


Despite  all  the  extravagances  of  Bolshevism, 
despite  the  strange  features  of  its  psychology, 
serious  minded  men  in  many  lands  are  seri- 
ously urging  it  upon  the  world  as  a  new  basis 
for  human  government  and  society.  Coming 
thus  for  judgment  it  ought  to  be  estimated,  so 
far  as  possible,  soberly  on  its  merits,  by  its 
visible  works  and  by  the  results  of  its  prac- 
tical testing.  Those  that  wish  to  know  the  truth 
about  it  must  regret  that  the  whole  subject  has 
been  so  often  obscured  with  unfounded  attacks, 
blindly  and  maliciously  made,  and  with  so  many 
gross  inventions.  For  a  long  time  it  was  the 
pleasure  of  certain  news  agencies  to  kill  Marie 
Spirodonovo  and  Catherine  Breshkovkaya  at 
the  hands  of  the  Bolshevic  government  every 
other  week,  alternating  with  the  weird  tales  of 
the  "traveler  just  returned  from  Petrograd"  of 
universal  slaughter  and  gutters  running  blood. 
The  facts  are  sad  enough;  they  needed  no  em- 

261 


262       BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

broidery  of  this  hectic  variety;  and  the  whole 
case  against  the  Bolshevic  philosophy  has 
doubtless  been  weakened  by  reckless  or  panic- 
stricken  fancies. 

There  is  a  striking  illustration  of  this  in  the 
wild-eyed  stories  set  afloat  concerning  the  so- 
called  "nationalization  of  women,'*  for  which 
has  appeared  no  warrant  in  any  competent 
testimony,  and  yet  were  they  solemnly  imbedded 
as  fact  in  the  proceedings  of  a  committee  of  the 
United  States  Senate! 

In  all  these  cases  it  is  probably  the  habit  of 
thoughtful  men  to  put  aside  any  testimony  ex- 
cept that  of  known  and  responsible  witnesses. 
As  to  such  testimony  in  the  present  case,  there 
is  some  conflict.  In  the  earlj^  days  of  the  Bol- 
shevic government,  before  it  had  shown  its  real 
attitude  toward  democracy  and  before  the 
period  of  the  Terror,  a  certain  number  of 
American  and  English  observers  were  much 
taken  with  it.  Besides  the  three  able  authors 
that  I  have  already  cited.  Colonel  W.  B. 
Thompson,  and  Colonel  Raymond  Bobbins  of 
the  Red  Cross ;  Mr.  Ransome,  the  correspondent 
of  the  London  Daily  News,  and  Edgar  Lee 
Brown,  of  the  Chicago  Daily  News,  were 
favorable  to  it.  Mr.  Ransome  went  even  so 
far  as  to  address  to  the  American  people  an 


A   CLOUD   OF  WITNESSES  263 

appeal  in  its  behalf.  So  far  as  I  am  aware, 
none  of  these  continued  an  outspoken  supjjort 
of  the  cause  after  the  Terror  had  become  an 
undeniable  fact.  Among  the  witnesses  before 
the  Senate  Committee  were  some  that  said  they 
believed  the  Bolshevic  experiment  should  have 
a  fair  chance  to  be  tested  in  Russia  without 
foreign  interference,  but  they  did  not  advocate 
the  methods  of  the  Extraordinary  Committee 
as  good  for  the  rest  of  the  world.  Apparently 
some  of  these  again  changed  their  view  as  to 
this  soon  after  they  left  the  committee  room. 
It  is  these  transformations  (and  others)  that 
further  the  confusion  of  the  public. 

But  over  against  the  first  impressions  of  gen- 
erous minds,  carried  away  with  visions  of  the 
New  Jerusalem,  we  may  set  the  reports  of  trust- 
worthy witnesses  that  have  seen  the  later  de- 
velopments of  the  drama.  And  we  can  omit 
all  press  despatches,  all  fugitive  reports  and 
rumors  concerning  outrages  in  Bolshevic  Rus- 
sia and  believe  only  what  unprejudiced  men  of 
good  repute  tell  us  they  have  seen  with  their 
own  eyes  or  learned  in  ways  probable  to  reason. 

The  first  is  my  friend,  John  Pollock,  whose 
character  turns  the  point  of  every  charge  of 
exaggeration  or  malice.  With  every  one  else 
that   knows   him   I  understand   well   that  his 


264      BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

plain  yea  and  nay  are  unassailable.  He  and 
his  family  have  a  familiar  name  in  England; 
his  father  is  that  Frederick  Pollock  so  often 
quoted  as  an  authority  on  international  law,  for 
he  is  one  of  the  greatest  of  English  lawyers. 
John  Pollock,  who,  by  the  way,  is  a  graduate 
of  an  American  University,  has  a  mind  as  keen 
as  his  father's  and  a  stern  and  almost  Puri- 
tanical sense  of  personal  probity.  He  is  not  a 
capitalist;  his  sympathies  are  with  the  people. 
In  the  spring  of  1915,  from  a  sense  of  duty  he 
volunteered  for  Red  Cross  work  in  Russia  and 
went  there  in  charge  of  the  distribution  of  the 
British  fund  for  the  relief  of  Polish  refugees. 
His  labors  were  wholly  disinterested ;  he  was  in 
Russia  merely  to  do  good.  In  Petrograd  he 
went  through  the  Revolution  and  the  Bolshevic 
coup  without  being  disturbed  in  his  charitable 
work,  and  when  the  Bolshevic  government 
moved  to  Moscow  he  went  with  it.  After  Au- 
gust, 1918,  he  disappeared  and  for  several 
months  his  family  heard  nothing  from  him  so 
that  by  many  he  was  given  up  for  lost.  In 
February,  1919,  he  wrote  from  the  place  in 
Finland  to  which  he  had  made  his  escape  the 
following  account  of  his  adventures:* 


*  Published  in  full  in  the  London  Daily  Express,  of  Feb- 
ruary 24,  1919. 


A   CLOUD   OF   WITNESSES  265 

'*  'Sovoepia'  is  what  the  irreverent  term  the 
Socialist  Federative  Republic  [Bolshevist  re- 
gime] or  in  other  words,  the  blackest,  most 
brutal  tyranny  that  ever  disgraced  humanity. 

"In  August,  1918,  when  the  Bolshevics  ar- 
rested the  Allied  representatives,  I  managed  to 
obtain  timely  warning,  and  vanished  from  my 
hotel  in  Moscow.  I  obtained  false  papers,  pos- 
ing as  a  Lettish  political  emigrant  who  had 
spent  most  of  his  life  in  America,  and  was  thus 
able  to  continue  my  work  of  administering  the 
Polish  Refugee  Children 's  Home.  The  circum- 
stances were  most  difficult,  owing  to  the  obstruc- 
tions offered  to  British  work,  denunciations, 
requisitions,  and  fancy  food  prices. 

"Once  I  was  nearly  caught,  in  consequence 
of  a  denunciation  by  a  German  spy,  and  fled  to 
Saratov,  530  miles  southeast  of  Moscow.  To 
be  a  fugitive  for  my  life  was  preferable  to  the 
certainty  of  a  Bolshevic  prison  and  the  proba- 
bility of  a  fate  similar  to  that  of  the  French 
prisoners,  who  were  forced  to  clean  the  Red 
Guards '  latrines.  Some  of  them  were  murdered 
and  some  died  from  semi-starvation  or  disease. 

"As  the  liquidation  of  the  Children's  Home 
[one  of  his  charities]  was  progressing,  I  ob- 
tained in  November  the  position  of  producer  at 
a  theater  in  Petrograd.     This  enabled  me  to 


266       BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

seek  an  opportunity  of  escaping  to  Finland,  now- 
evacuated  by  the  Germans,  and  ultimately  I  dis- 
covered a  reliable  agent  to  arrange  the  journey. 

"Formerly  it  was  easier  to  cross  the  frontier, 
but  latterly  a  strict  watch  had  been  kept  by  the 
Bolshevics,  who  offered  $300  head-money  for 
fugitives,  alive  or  dead.  The  Finnish  peasants 
are  strongly  anti-Bolshevic,  but  sometimes  they 
themselves  rob  and  kill  fugitives.  Therefore 
care  was  necessary. 

' '  When  I  accompanied  my  agent  to  the  start- 
ing point  on  the  appointed  day  we  learned  that 
the  previous  party  had  suffered  a  mishap  and 
that  w^e  must  defer  the  journey  and  choose 
another  route.  It  was  arranged  that  I  should 
receive  definite  instructions  at  the  agent's  flat 
in  Petrograd  the  following  day. 

''Next  morning  I  went  to  the  flat.  I  rang  the 
bell  and  the  door  w^as  opened.  As  I  entered  I 
was  greeted  with  the  cry  'Hands  up!'  and  two 
revolvers  were  pointed  at  my  head.  Resistance 
was  impossible.  I  was  in  the  hands  of  two 
sailors,  a  soldier  and  the  Jewish  chief  agents 
of  the  Extraordinary  Committee  to  Combat  the 
Counter-Revolution,  which  is  the  Bolshevic's 
chief  weapon  for  maintaining  and  spreading  the 
Red  Reign  of  Terror. 

"The  flat  had  been  torn  to  pieces  in  the  course 


A   CLOUD   OF  WITNESSES  267 

of  a  search.  The  floor  was  littered  with  cushions, 
hangings,  papers  and  books.  The  sailors  were 
trying  on  women's  clothes  and  selecting  for 
their  own  use  the  best  articles  in  the  wardrobe 
of  the  flat's  owner. 

*'I  was  searched  and  my  money  and  pocket- 
book  were  confiscated.  My  papers  were  in  per- 
fect order,  but  the  sailors  said  I  had  been  'de- 
nounced' and  that  I  was  known  and  had  been 
expected.  Wlien  I  maintained  that  I  was  an 
actor,  knew  nothing  concerning  Finland,  and 
had  come  innocently  to  visit  an  acquaintance 
(I  pretended  I  did  not  remember  when  I  had 
seen  him  last),  one  of  the  sailors  thrust  his  face 
into  mine. 

*'  'Look  here,'  he  ejaculated,  *we  are  treating 
you  like  a  comrade.  Tell  us  everything  you 
know ;  it  will  be  better  for  you.  If  you  do  other- 
wise, wait  till  I  get  you  at  Gorochovaya.  You 
don't  remember,  don't  you?  After  a  few  hours 
I'll  make  you  remember  what  you  ate  last  year, 
day  by  day,  and  after  that,  when  you  have  sat 
in  the  Troubetskoy  Bastion  for  four  or  five 
months  your  best  friend  will  not  know  you.' 

**As  I  refused  to  say  more  they  dispatched 
me  in  a  magnificent  Benz  limousine,  under  a 
special    guard,    to    Gorochovaya,    the    head- 


268      BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

quarters  of  the  Extraordinary  Committee  to 
Combat  the  Counter-Revolution. 

'^The  threat  of  torture  was  not  idle.  In  all 
the  prisons,  especially  Gorochovaya  and  the 
fortress  of  Peter  and  Paul,  the  conditions  them- 
selves constitute  torture.  More  than  thirty 
persons  are  sometimes  crowded  into  a  cell 
measuring  12  feet  by  16,  and  there  have  been 
cases  where  200  persons  have  been  herded  in 
a  space  24  feet  by  20.  Often  there  is  no  furni- 
ture and  the  prisoners  sit  on  the  floors  oozing 
with  damp  and  containing  pools  of  water.  If 
the  furniture  consists  of  plank  beds — one  bed 
to  four  or  five  prisoners — they  take  turns  at 
lying  upon  it.    The  beds  are  alive  with  vermin. 

"For  five  or  six  weeks  on  end  the  prisoners 
are  unable  to  wash,  and  for  months  they  are 
unable  to  change  their  linen.  In  consequence 
they  become  covered  with  sores  and  vermin. 
In  the  Troubetskoy  Bastion,  the  worst  place  in 
the  fortress  of  Peter  and  Paul,  and  in  some 
of  the  cells  at  Gorochovaya  the  latrines  are 
defective  or  broken. 

"I  have  learned  on  the  evidence  of  an  im- 
prisoned English  woman  that  a  drunken  com- 
missioner named  Heller  has  women  publicly 
stripped  and  subjected  to  obscene  treatment 
and  chooses  girls  to  violate  at  his  leisure. 


A   CLOUD   OF  WITNESSES  269 

"The  food  is  execrable  and  insufficient.  A 
whole  day's  food  for  five  persons  consists  of 
about  two  quarts  of  soup  made  from  rotten 
fish,  with  maggots  floating  in  it,  and  a  quarter 
of  a  pound  of  bread.  In  one  cell  at  Goro- 
chovaya  a  quarter  of  a  pound  of  bread  daily 
and  no  other  food  was  supplied  for  five  weeks. 
Food  sent  in  by  the  relatives  is  kept  at  the 
fortress  (Peter  and  Paul)  until  it  is  com- 
pletely rotten,  while  at  Gorochovaya  it  is  not 
delivered  at  all. 

*' Moreover  there  is  little  doubt  that  active 
torture  is  employed  to  extract  information. 
The  interrogatories  are  conducted  with  the  aid 
of  the  Red  Guards.  On  prisoners  refusing  to 
give  the  required  answer  the  Red  Guards  fire 
into  the  wall  over  the  prisoners'  heads,  repeat- 
ing this  lower  and  lower  until  the  nerves  of 
the  prisoner  entirely  succumb.  Salt  fish  is  also 
given  to  the  prisoners  to  eat  and  they  are 
denied  anything  to  drink.  They  are  also 
brutally  flogged.  It  is  reported  that  four  grand 
dukes  were  abominably  beaten  before  being 
murdered. 

*'The  final  stage  of  this  abomination  is  the 
employment  of  Chinese  torturers,  who  are  also 
chiefly  employed  to  carry  out  executions.  It 
is  impossible  to  speak  with  certainty,  since  the 


270       BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

victims  are  not  allowed  to  live  afterwards, 
but  I  confidently  believe  the  statements  of 
credible  prisoners  wlio  say  they  have  heard  the 
shrieks  of  the  tortured  from  adjacent  cells. 

"The  front  door  at  Gorochovaya  was  shut 
and  I  entered  through  the  court.  On  leaving 
the  motor  car  I  ascended  the  back  stairs  and 
passed  through  a  kitchen  on  the  second  floor 
and  a  gallery  to  the  main  spiral  staircase  and 
down  to  the  room  on  the  first  floor  where  the 
preliminary  examinations  took  place.  The 
guard  passed  me  into  the  custody  of  a  loutish 
hooligan,  apparently  sixteen  years  old. 

*'It  is  noticeable  that  all  the  agents  of  the 
Extraordinary  Committee  are  extremely  youth- 
ful. Their  faces  are  more  abominable  than 
any  others  I  have  seen — a  mixture  of  hardness 
and  bestial  cruelty.  Doubtless  they  are  all 
professional  criminals. 

"I  was  searched  again  and  my  remaining 
valuables,  including  a  gold  watch,  were  con- 
fiscated. Then  I  was  sent  downstairs  with  the 
hooligan  to  a  corridor  where  the  rooms  were 
numbered  32  and  36  and  I  was  told  to  wait. 
Presently  another  hooligan  introduced  my 
agent's  wife  and  partner,  and  my  lout  disap- 
peared, leaving  us  with  the  newcomer. 

*'We  were   concocting  a  common  story  in 


A   CLOUD   OF   WITNESSES  271 

whispers  when  an  officer  entered,  called, 
*  Prisoners,  follow  me,'  and  went  out,  followed 
by  the  guard  and  my  agent's  wife  and  partner. 
I  arose  from  the  bench  on  which  I  was  sitting, 
but  noticing  that  the  guard  had  preceded  me, 
I  determined  to  remain  and  if  possible  to 
escape. 

*' After  a  minute  I  went  out  to  the  staircase, 
which  I  found  deserted.  I  descended  to  the 
ground  floor,  but,  discovering  that  the  guard 
room  of  the  Red  Guards  was  situated  there, 
reascended  to  the  second  floor  and  passed 
through  the  gallery  and  kitchen  to  the  stairs 
and  the  court.  At  the  gateway  were  five  Red 
Guards,  who  challenged  me  and  demanded 
my  pass.  I  answered  in  a  confident  manner, 
*I  am  from  Room  36.'  This  acted  like  a  charm. 
I  was  wearing  a  military  coat  and  fur  hat  and 
they  probably  took  me  for  a  commissioner.  I 
passed  through  the  gate  and  was  free. 

' '  I  spent  the  following  week  in  hiding,  closely 
pursued.  I  borrowed  money,  but  it  was  im- 
possible to  obtain  a  new  passport.  I  changed 
my  lodgings  four  times.  Twice  the  houses 
were  searched  after  I  left;  twice  I  saw  spies 
watching  me;  once  I  barely  escaped  a  search 
in  the  street,  and  once  I  almost  fell  into  a  trap. 
On  the  eighth  day  I  found  means  of  escape, 


272      BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

and  I  arrived  in  Finland  after  an  eight-hour 
drive  by  night  with  the  thermometer  a  few 
degrees  above  zero. 

"It  may  be  asked  why  the  Bolshevics  at- 
tributed such  importance  to  my  capture. 
Doubtless  the  informer  that  denounced  me  in- 
vented the  story  of  a  dangerous  British  plot, 
and  probably  my  report  exposing  German- 
Bolshevic  intrigues  was  remembered.  It  is 
noteworthy  that  the  matron  of  my  committee's 
Children's  Home  in  Moscow  was  arrested  in 
December  and  accused  of  arranging  meetings 
for  British  agents.  Princess  Bariatinsky,  the 
chairman  of  the  committee,  who  left  for  Pin- 
land  a  week  before  me,  was  similarly  de- 
nounced and  escaped  arrest  by  the  Extraor- 
dinary Commission  by  a  margin  of  only  one 
day.  The  agents  of  the  Commission  that 
searched  my  lodgings  said  that  I  should  be 
shot  immediately. 

''The  informer  that  denounced  me  is  known 
to  me  and  is  prominent  in  the  artistic  world 
of  Petrograd.  He  is  a  former  opera  singer,  of 
Polish  nationality,  and  a  traveled  and  cultured 
man.  The  most  odious  evidence  of  the  cor- 
ruption produced  by  the  devilish  regime  of  the 
Bolshevics  is  that  well-bred  persons  are  some- 
times  professional   informers.     In   trying   to 


A   CLOUD   OF   WITNESSES  273 

catch  me  the  villain  did  not  scruple  to  have 
nearly  fifteen  persons  thrown  into  prison  and 
probably  eight  or  ten  of  them  were  shot." 

For  such  reasons  a  man  whose  sole  purpose 
and  work  in  Russia  were  of  the  worthiest  came 
to  be  hunted  like  a  malefactor  and  narrowly 
escaped  the  firing  squad.  We  should  not,  how- 
ever, bring  to  bear  upon  these  conditions  ex- 
actly the  same  standards  of  judgment  we 
should  use  elsewhere.  The  Bolshevics,  drunken 
with  blood,  had  overleaped  all  reason.  A  Scotch 
friend  of  mine  who  was  serving  as  a  subaltern 
officer  in  the  Russian  army  was  notified  by  his 
men  that  they  were  going  to  shoot  him. 

''What  for?"  said  he.  "Have  I  not  been  a 
good  officer?" 

"Always,"  said  the  men,  "but  you  are  an 
Englishman  and  so  we  are  going  to  shoot  you." 

"But  I  am  not  an  Englishman,"  said  he,  as 
a  forlorn  hope.  "I  am  a  Scotchman." 

"Aren't  an  Englishman  and  a  Scotchman 
the  same?" 

"Oh,  no;  a  Scotchman  is  very  much  better 
than  an  Englishman.  You  see  he  is  a  higher 
order  of  being. ' ' 

"Is  that  so?  Then,  of  course,  we  will  not 
shoot  you."    So  they  tossed  him  in  a  blanket 


274       BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

first  and  then  said  he  was  a  good  fellow  and 
kissed  him  on  both  cheeks  and  wished  to  have 
him  promoted. 

H.  V.  Keeling,  a  member  of  the  Amalgamated 
Society  of  Lithographic  Artists  of  London, 
was  employed  in  Russia  as  chief  photographer 
to  the  Committee  on  Public  Education.  He 
received  a  salary  of  nine  thousand  dollars  a 
year  and  occupied  a  suite  in  the  Winter  Palace 
at  Petrograd.  When  he  found  that  his  salary 
even  when  translated  into  roubles  at  five  cents 
on  the  dollar  would  not  buy  him  enough  food  to 
keep  him  alive  he  tried  to  leave  Russia.  At  that 
time  no  foreigner  was  allowed  to  depart.  He 
stole  out  of  the  Palace  while  the  Christmas  holi- 
days were  on,  and  marching  two  days  and  two 
nights,  working  his  way  past  the  guards  along 
the  road,  he  got  over  into  Finland.  His  escape 
had  been  discovered  and  Red  Guards  were  on 
his  trail.  Once  he  hid  in  a  blacksmith's  shop 
while  his  pursuers  searched  for  him.  When 
he  had  made  his  way  to  England  Mr.  Keeling 
gave  this  testimony  about  Russia: 

"You  will  gain  some  idea  of  the  awful  con- 
ditions there  from  an  incident  I  witnessed 
while  I  was  traveling  from  Petrograd  to 
Vologda  some  time  before  I  made  my  escape. 


A   CLOUD   OF   WITNESSES  275 

Our  train  was  boarded  by  Red  Guards  who 
searched  our  effects.  A  woman  in  my  car  had 
thirty  pounds  of  flour  that  she  had  secured  at 
her  native  town.  The  soldiers  seized  it  and 
the  poor  woman  fell  on  her  knees  and  begged 
them  to  let  her  have  even  a  few  pounds  for 
her  husband  and  five  children  starving  in 
Petrograd. 

"The  soldiers — mere  boys  and  brutal  ones  at 
that — laughed  at  her.  They  jeered  at  her 
coarsely  as  she  followed  them  from  the  train 
praying  them  to  have  mercy.  Other  women 
joined  their  prayers  to  hers  but  in  vain.  De- 
claring that  she  could  not  face  her  starving 
family  without  the  flour  she  threw  herself 
under  a  passing  train  and  was  killed. 

''A  great  many  of  my  personal  friends  took 
an  active  part  in  both  Revolutions  and  a  year 
ago  were  among  the  most  active  supporters  of 
Bolshevism  in  principle  and  in  practice.  They 
honestly  believed  that  the  Bolshevic  rule  was 
the  beginning  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  on 
earth,  and  that  they  would  show  the  rest  of 
the  world  the  way  to  happiness.  They  saw 
nothing  wrong  in  the  wholesale  killing  of  the 
bourgeoisie,  whom  they  considered  the  para- 
sites of  society.  These  men  gladly  took  office 
as  Bolshevic  commissioners. 


276       BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

**  Their  whole  attitude  has  now  changed. 
After  fifteen  months'  experience  of  this  peculiar 
heaven  they  are  to-day,  although  still  commis- 
sioners and  officers  of  the  Soviets,  the  bitterest 
opponents  of  the  Bolshevist  program. 

' '  Their  change  of  opinion  is  more  than  justi- 
fied. No  one  can  deny  that  the  Bolshevic  has 
had  time  and  opportunity  to  put  his  theories 
into  practice.  Many  of  the  workingmen  be- 
lieved the  statements  of  the  Soviets  that  the 
famine  in  Petrograd  was  the  result  of  the  war, 
the  mismanagement  by  the  old  regime  and  the 
mistakes  of  the  temporary  government.  Now, 
after  an  unusually  good  harvest,  they  find  that 
the  famine  is  worse  than  ever,  and  that  it  has 
extended  from  Petrograd  to  Moscow  and  to 
practically  every  town  in  the  part  of  Russia 
that  is  under  the  Bolshevic  rule. 

''This  is  a  complete  refutation  of  the  'land 
for  the  people*  theory.  The  land,  in  fact,  is 
divided  only  among  the  villagers — who  have 
more  than  enough  food — and  then  only  locally, 
and  the  townsfolk  are  starving  and  will  con- 
tinue to  starve.  Private  trading  being  abso- 
lutely forbidden,  and  the  paper  currency  being 
practically  worthless,  the  sufficient  food  stocks 
in  the  country  remain  in  the  hands  of  the 
peasant  proprietors,  who  have  secreted  them. 


A  CLOUD  OF  WITNESSES  277 

**  Bolshevism  is  absolutely  discredited  in 
Russia.  I  can  state  on  excellent  authority — 
a  man  that  sat  on  the  various  Soviets — that 
the  majority  of  the  highest  Soviets  realize 
that  they  have  come  almost  to  the  end  of 
their  tether,  and  would  be  glad  to  seize  the 
first  opportunity  to  escape  the  results  of  their 
disastrous  experiment.  Even  Lenine  and 
Trotsky  are  disappointed — Lenine  especially." 

Mr.  Keeling  pointed  out  the  fact  before  men- 
tioned in  these  pages  that  there  was  food  enough 
in  Russia  and  that  the  only  cause  of  the  wide- 
spread and  terrible  famine  was  the  breakdown 
of  the  system  of  transportation  and  distribu- 
tion. The  towns  were  without  food  and  the 
country  districts  were  without  manufactured 
articles. 

*'As  I  walked  through  one  of  the  provinces 
in  November  last,  covering  in  my  tour  many 
hundreds  of  miles,  I  foimd  many  cottages 
where  there  was  only  half  a  pint  of  kerosene 
to  last  imtil  the  new  year.  A  large  part  of 
the  cattle  had  been  slaughtered  for  the  Red 
Army's  needs.  In  a  country  where  artificial 
fertilizer  is  unobtainable  the  loss  of  large  num- 
bers of  cattle  is  a  most  serious  matter  and 


278      BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

will  undoubtedly  result  in  the  spread  of 
famine.  Besides  this,  the  peasants  are  afraid 
to  plow  and  sow  more  than  is  absolutely  nec- 
essary, for  they  fear  confiscation. 

"Unless  something  is  done  soon  to  help 
these  people  to  escape  from  the  vicious  circle 
in  which  they  are  enclosed,  the  whole  of  Soviet 
Russia  will  be  utterly  ruined  and  become  a 
wilderness  controlled  by  and  at  the  mercy  of 
a  brutal  soldiery. 

*  *  The  Red  Army  does  not  contain  much  more 
than  ten  per  cent,  of  convinced  Bolshevics.  It 
is  kept  under  control  by  a  ruthless  system  of 
terrorism  and  espionage.  No  soldier  dare  say 
a  word  against  the  Bolshevist  regime  because 
he  knows  that  a  considerable  percentage  of 
his  comrades  are  paid  spies  in  the  service  of 
masters  whom  they  really  hold  in  contempt.  If 
a  man  deserts  from  the  Red  Guard  or  shows 
cowardice  his  parents  or  near  relatives  are 
mercilessly  punished.  Desertion  is  tantamount 
to  signing  the  death  warrant  of  one's  nearest 
and  dearest.  In  a  word  the  Bolshevist  system 
is  an  ideal  founded  on  brutality." 

As  bearing  ont  Mr.  Reeling's  testimony 
about  this  I  may  cite  a  statement  certified  to 
be  of  trustworthy  origin  and  in  the  possession 


A   CLOUD   OF  WITNESSES  ?79 

of  the  British  authorities  that  in  the  vicinity 
of  the  town  of  Khan  the  father  and  sister  of 
a  Red  Guardsman  who  had  deserted  or  in  some 
other  way  been  black-listed  were  crucified. 

Oscar  Totoi,  the  first  prime  minister  of 
democratic  Finland,  was  at  one  time  much 
taken  with  Bolshevism  and  went  to  Russia  as 
a  Bolshevist  ally.  What  he  saw  there  seems 
to  have  converted  him  from  the  faith  for  he 
has  since  repudiated  the  alliance  and  delivered 
a  verdict  that  Bolshevism  is  a  failure.  He  sums 
up  his  observations  in  these  words: 

*'l.  The  present  Soviet  government  does  not 
represent  the  Russian  people.  In  comparison 
with  the  entire  population  only  a  small  minor- 
ity supports  the  government,  and  what  is 
worse,  to  the  supporters  of  the  government  are 
rallying  all  the  hooligans,  robbers  and  the  like 
to  whom  this  period  of  confusion  promises  a 
good  chance  of  individual  action. 

''Even  a  great  part  of  those  who  from  the 
beginning  could  stay  with  the  government  and 
who  are  still  sincere  Social  Democrats,  having 
seen  all  this  chaos,  begin  to  step  aside,  or  to 
ally  themselves  with  those  openly  opposing  the 
government.  Naturally,  a?  time  goes  by,  there 
remains  only  the  worst  and  most  demoralized 


280      BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

element.  Terror,  arbitrary  rule  and  open 
brigandage  become  more  and  more  usual  and 
the  government  is  not  able  to  prevent  them. 
Naturally  only  a  small  part  of  the  people  will 
remain  backing  such  an  order. 

**2.  Socialism  can  be  established  only 
through  a  democracy,  but  not  through  a  Dic- 
tatorship of  the  Proletariat.  A  Socialist  so- 
ciety cannot  be  brought  about  nor  supported 
by  force  of  arms,  but  must  be  founded  on  a  con- 
scious and  living  will  of  an  overwhelming 
majority  of  the  nation,  which  is  able  to  realize 
its  will  without  the  help  of  arms. 

**3.  Russia  has  become  practically  a  colony 
of  Germany.  Germany,  because  of  her  own 
interests,  is  compelled  to  support  the  Bolshevic 
rule  as  long  as  possible,  as  Germany  from  the 
Bolshevic  rule  is  pressing  more  and  more 
political  and  economic  advantages,  to  such  an 
extent  even  that  all  Russia  is  becoming  an 
economic  dependency  of  Germany." 

Hans  Vorst  of  the  Berlin  Tagehlatt  wrote  to 
his  journal  from  Petrograd:* 

*'It  is  clearly  proved  that  the  Bolshevic  at- 
tempt to  make  the  working  masses  the  rulers 


*  Published  in  the  Tagehlatt,  October  11,  1918. 


A   CLOUD   OF  WITNESSES  281 

of  Russia  and  to  bring  the  Socialist  ideal  into 
being  by  means  of  a  coup  d'etat  has  failed 
completely.  .  .  .  The  Dictatorship  of  the  Pro- 
letariat has  destroyed  the  former  economic  life 
of  the  country,  and  has  failed  to  create  any- 
thing in  its  place.  If  the  economic  machinery 
of  the  Soviet  Republic  has  not  reached  an  ab- 
solute standstill  the  reason  is  that  the  main- 
spring of  the  old  economic  system  has  not 
quite  run  down,  in  spite  of  the  strain  put  upon 
it,  and  the  Socialist  state  is  still  drawing  on 
the  reserves  accumulated  under  the  old  regime. 
But  such  reserves  are  fast  declining;  the  mo- 
ment of  exhaustion  is  near  at  hand,  and  the 
machine  will  come  to  a  halt.  ...  It  is  obvious 
that  such  a  system  of  economic  pillage  of  the 
past  is  condemned  to  speedy  bankruptcy. 
Sound  evolution  under  such  methods  is  incon- 
ceivable. Collapse  is  only  a  question  of  time 
and  the  longer  it  is  postponed  the  deeper  the 
morass  of  misery  into  which  the  land  will  sink. 
"The  state  of  affairs  is  so  plain  to  the  eye 
that  even  the  leaders  of  the  proletarian  Revolu- 
tion, in  spite  of  the  optimism  to  which  some 
of  them  cling,  cannot  avoid  the  prospect  be- 
fore them.  .  .  .  The  Bol  she  vies  now  admit  that 
their  only  support  is  in  the  urban  working 
masses.    The  so-called  class  of  'poorest  peas- 


282       BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

ants'  is  composed,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  of  the 
city  workers  who  have  been  driven  by  indus- 
trial collapse  from  the  cities  back  to  the 
villages. 

*^But  the  tragedy  of  the  Dictatorship  of  the 
Proletariat  stands  out  in  the  most  sinister  light 
when  we  consider  that  it  has  brought  evil  even 
to  the  numerically  small  class  in  whose  name 
such  dictatorship  has  been  brought  into  being. 
The  workers  naturally  looked  to  their  own 
government  for  an  immediate  improvement  in 
their  undeniably  wretched  condition.  The 
govermnent  of  the  workers  was  compelled  to 
recognize  this  demand;  wages  were  raised  and 
the  workday  was  shortened.  Through  such 
procedure  the  existing  crisis  in  production 
was  accentuated.  The  rise  in  prices  has  kept 
pace  with  universal  wages,  and  the  general 
status  of  the  working  classes,  far  from  improv- 
ing, has  been  growing  worse.  I  have  already 
mentioned  how  the  Bolshevist  leaders  in  the 
act  of  raising  wages  one-half  openly  confessed 
that  there  was  no  reason  to  expect  better  living 
conditions  for  the  workers.  Holzmann,  the 
representative  of  the  Central  Committee  of 
Metal  Workers,  wrote  in  the  IzvesUa:  *In 
order  to  avert,  at  the  same  time,  counter-revo- 
lution and  the  horrors  of  famine,  the  productive 


A   CLOUP   OF  WITNESSES  283 

population  must  work,  work,  work.  The  fac- 
tory chimneys  must  belch  forth  their  smoke 
and  the  machines  must  strike  up  anew  the 
hymn  of  productive  victory. '  But  this  only  way 
out  of  disorder  is  now  closed,  and  on  factory 
and  machine  descends  the  silence  of  the  grave. 

"The  question  naturally  arises  why,  under 
such  circumstances,  the  working  masses  have 
not  turned  against  their  leaders.  The  rea- 
sons are  manifold.  Continued  wage-increases, 
though  they  have  brought  no  fundamental 
amelioration,  have  nevertheless  acted  as  a 
palliative.  The  violent  and  unremitting  preach- 
ment of  class  war  has  kept  the  passions  alive 
and  served  to  obscure  the  physical  misery  of 
the  moment.  The  elaborate  propaganda  ma- 
chinery of  the  Soviets  has  been  concentrated 
on  the  task  of  creating  ever  new  hopes  among 
the  masses,  and  keeping  alive  the  faith  in  a 
proletarian  world  revolution.  The  class-con- 
scious element  among  the  workers  is  flattered 
by  the  thought  that  they  are  the  masters  where 
once  they  were  the  slaves. 

"Also  there  are  more  than  a  few  working- 
men  whose  economic  condition  has  certainly 
changed  for  the  better.  These  are  the  men 
who  are  now  placemen  in  the  numerous  Soviet 
organs    of    administration.      They    have    ex- 


284       BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

changed  the  toil  of  the  factory  for  a  com- 
fortable chair  in  some  bureau  or  commission. 
Further,  they  are  the  leaders  of  the  Red  Army 
and  the  agitators.  Thus  there  has  speedily 
arisen  among  the  working  masses  an  aris- 
tocracy of  labor,  which  is  most  intimately 
concerned  with  the  maintenance  of  the  Dic- 
tatorship of  the  Proletariat.  This  new  aristoc- 
racy naturally  comprises  the  most  energetic 
and  best  educated  workmen  and  their  influence 
has  been  strong  enough  to  hold  the  masses  in 
check. 

*'But  none  of  these  forces  can  permanently 
withstand  the  pressure  of  the  approaching 
misery.  I  have  been  told  by  one  man  who  is 
in  continuous  and  immediate  contact  with  the 
working  masses:  *Half  of  them  are  opposed 
to  the  Soviet  government;  the  rest  are  indif- 
ferent or  resigned.'  For  the  moment  this  may 
be  an  overstatement.  But  the  destitution  of 
the  workers  grows  daily,  and  the  moment  is 
near  when  the  Dictatorship  of  the  Proletariat 
will  rest  solely  on  the  above-mentioned  aris- 
tocracy of  labor." 

In  July,  1918,  the  Social  Democratic  and 
Social  Revolutionary  parties  of  Russia  sent  a 
delegation  to  England  and  France  for  the  pur- 


A   CLOUD   OF  WITNESSES  285 

pose  of  arousing  tho,  radical  tliinkors  of  Wostorn 
Europe  to  a  knowledge  of  what  was  developing 
in  Russia.  The  most  prominent  members  of 
this  delegation  were  Paul  Axelrod  of  the  Social 
Democrats  and  Nicolai  Rusanoff  ol'  the  Social 
Revolutionaries.  Both  are  well-known  loaders. 
On  arriving  at  Paris  they  issued  to  the  Social- 
ists of  Europe  an  appeal  for  sympathy  and  help 
in  behalf  of  the  oppressed  millions  of  their 
country.  It  gives  a  description  of  the  evils 
which  the  Bolshevics  have  brought  upon  Russia 
by  destroying  industry,  disbanding  the  army, 
and  forcibly  preventing  all  expression  of  will 
or  of  opinion  by  the  people.  Even  friends  of 
the  Russian  democracy,  it  complains,  do  not 
realize  the  truth.  *' Literal  statements,  such  as 
were  issued  by  Petrograd  worlanen  a  few  weeks 
ago,  of  the  effects  of  Bolshevist  tyranny,  of  the 
bloody  suppression  of  popular  movements,  and 
of  the  way  thousands  are  dying  of  hunger  and 
disease,  are  treated,  even  in  the  Socialist  press 
of  Western  Europe,  as  imaginative  stories,  and 
genuine  popular  expressions  of  indignation  are 
indiscriminately  disposed  of  as  propaganda  of 
the  counter-revolution." 

According  to  this  manifesto  the  overwhelm- 
ing mass  of  workmen  and  peasants  is  not  only 
anti-Bolshevist,  but  on  the  point  of  rising  in 


286       BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

arms  against  Bolshevist  tyranny.  In  these  cir- 
cumstances the  Social  Democratic  and  Social 
Revolutionary  parties  consider  it  their  duty  to 
propose  the  creation  of  an  international  com- 
mission consisting  of  representatives  of  all 
Socialist  parties,  to  visit  Russia,  accompanied 
by  trustworthy  interpreters,  and,  after  inquiries 
on  the  spot,  to  give  clear  answers  to  the  follow- 
ing questions: 

"1.  Are  we  right,  yes  or  no,  when  we  declare 
that  the  Bolshevist  government  has  degen- 
erated into  an  instrument  of  reaction  and,  al- 
though it  hides  behind  the  words  *the  will  of  the 
workmen  and  peasants,'  does  not  shrink  from 
the  most  extreme  and  violent  measures  of  op- 
pression directed  against  these  same  workmen 
and  peasants? 

*'2.  Are  we  right  when  we  declare  that  the 
Bolshevist  government  has  now  no  other  aim 
than  to  preserve  at  all  costs  its  own  power,  and 
that  with  this  object  it  is  ready  to  sacrifice  all 
the  conquests  of  the  Revolution  and  take  refuge 
in  a  state  of  terrorism  directed,  not  against  the 
bourgeoisie,  but  against  the  other  Socialist 
parties  and  the  mass  of  the  proletariat  and 
peasants  whom  they  represent,  and  that,  finally, 
eager  to  justify  itself  in  the  eyes  of  the  foreign 


A   CLOUD   OF  WITNESSES  287 

conqueror,  it  has  not  hesitated  in  connection 
with  the  Mirbach  *  incident  to  lay  at  his  feet 
the  dead  bodies  of  200  of  its  own  Social  Revo- 
lutionary countrymen? 

''3.  Are  we  right  when  we  declare  that  Bol- 
shevism has  done  nothing  to  apply  Socialist 
principles  and  has  only  succeeded  in  destroying 
industry  and  bringing  about  universal  unem- 
ployment and  starvation? 

**4.  Are  we  right  when  we  declare  that  the 
Bolshevist  government  denies  us  every  pos- 
sibility to  open  discussion  or  to  struggle  for 
what  we  consider  to  be  Russia's  only  hope  of 
salvation,  namely,  the  summoning  of  the  Con- 
stituent Assembly  and  the  re-establishing  of 
popular  means  of  local  administration — in  a 
word,  the  placing  of  all  power  in  the  hands  of 
the  people? 

"5.  Are  the  Bolshevics  right  when  they  as- 
sert that  all  other  Russian  Socialist  parties  are 
seeking,  not  to  free  the  working  classes  from 


♦Count  Mirbach  was  the  first  German  ambassador  to 
Russia  after  the  Brest-Utovsk  treaty.  He  was  assassinated 
by  fanatical  Russians.  All  accounts  agree  that  the 
assassination  was  followed  by  hundreds  of  summary  execu- 
tions without  trial  in  all  parts  of  Russia,  many  of  the 
victims  being  prominent  Socialists  of  unimpeachable 
records,  while  many  others  were  persons  that  had  never 
heard  of  Mirbach. 


288       BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

the  despotic  oppression  of  a  small  minority,  but, 
in  concert  with  the  bourgeois  and  monarchist 
elements,  to  bring  about  a  counter-revolution?" 

In  making  this  proposal  for  a  commission  of 
inquiry,  the  appeal  continues: 

*'We  are  concerned  for  the  honor  of  the  In- 
ternational. We  consider  it  absolutely  insuf- 
ferable that  influential  sections  of  the  interna- 
tional labor  movement  without  having  made  the 
least  effort  to  obtain  satisfactory  and  impartial 
information  should  give  their  moral  support  to 
the  anti-democratic  policy  of  the  Bolshevics  and 
be  involuntary  accessories  to  an  unprecedented 
historical  crime. 

''Again  and  again  have  the  Socialist  parties 
of  Russia  proposed  to  the  Bolshevics  that  the 
problem  should  be  solved  in  a  free,  democratic 
manner  by  an  appeal  to  the  people  in  the  shape 
of  a  referendum  or  a  new  election  for  the  Con- 
stituent Assembly,  and  the  stubborn  refusal  of 
the  Bolshevics  to  accept  any  such  proposal  or 
to  admit  any  limitation  of  their  despotic  powers 
has  created  a  situation  from  which,  exactly  as 
was  the  case  under  Czarism,  there  is  no  way  out 
except  through  force. 

"It  must  not  happen  that  the  International, 


A   CLOUD   OF   WITNESSES  289 

by  giving  its  moral  support  to  the  Bolshevics, 
weaken  the  Socialist  opposition  and  so  help  the 
reactionary  elements  to  bring  about  the  liquida- 
tion of  Bolshevism  in  their  own  interests,  which 
are  diametrically  opposed  to  those  of  Socialism 
and  democracy. 

**We  are  convinced  that  the  International  will 
do  all  possible  to  establish  a  commission  of  in- 
quiry and  send  it  to  Russia,  and  in  doing  so  it 
will  fulfill  its  duty  not  only  to  the  Russian  pro- 
letariat, but  to  the  proletariat  of  all  countries. ' ' 

In  December,  1918,  prominent  men  in  the 
Republic  of  Esthonia  addressed  to  Ramsay 
Macdonald,  the  British  pacifist  and  former 
member  of  Parliament,  an  open  letter  of  pro- 
test, containing  testimony  that  the  Western 
world  might  well  ponder.    They  said : 

*' Democracy  can  no  more  live  side  by  side 
with  Bolshevism  than  with  the  Prussian  Jun- 
kers. No  sooner  did  the  Esthonian  Nation  get 
free  from  the  German  heel  and  form  a  pro- 
visional government  on  democratic  lines  out  of 
a  Liberal-Socialist  coalition,  than  the  Bolshe- 
vics assailed  them  without  reason. 

''Under  the  cry  of  the  self-determination  of 
nations,  the  Germans  in  Esthonia  obtained  self- 


290       BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

determination  for  the  Baltic  German  nobility, 
and  the  Bolshevics  determined  themselves.  At 
the  general  election  organized  last  January  in 
Esthonia  by  the  Bolshevics,  the  latter  found 
themselves  in  a  decided  minority,  but  with  vio- 
lence and  the  aid  of  foreign  bayonets  they  clung 
to  power. 

**  International  law  is  only  a  scrap  of  paper 
to  Junkers  and  Bolshevics  alike,  and  the  latter 's 
fleet,  flying  the  Swedish  flag,  went  to  Narva  on 
November  28,  where  they  landed  troops,  oc- 
cupied the  town,  and  instigated  wholesale  car- 
nage. The  Pan-Germans  adapted  Socialism  to 
their  own  aims.  At  the  time  of  the  occupation, 
German  Socialists  came  to  Esthonia  praising 
the  Baltic  German  nobility  and  abusing  the 
Esthonians  as  Great  Britain's  hirelings.  The 
only  productive  force  of  this  parody  of  Social- 
ism was  the  establishment  of  machinery  for 
printing  bank  notes. 

**  Owing  to  the  destruction  of  farms  and  the 
closing  of  mills,  the  proletariat  can  enjoy  the 
dictatorship  by  dying  of  hunger  or  by  joining 
the  red  robber  army. 

''British  workmen  could  learn  something  of 
Bolshevist  freedom  from  you,  Mr.  Ramsay 
Macdonald.  Maxim  Gorky's  paper  [the  Novaia 
Jizn],  of  which  you  were  a  correspondent,  has 


A   CLOUD   OF   WITNESSES  291 

long  since  been  suppressed,  like  the  whole  of 
the  anti-Bolshevist  press. 

**We  advise  European  Socialists  that  are 
courting  Bolshevism  to  make  a  nearer  acquaint- 
ance of  it,  but  we  fear  they  will  find  themselves 
in  the  torture  chambers  of  the  Bolshevics* 
extraordinary  commissions.  Russian  Bolshe- 
vism and  Prussian  Junkerism  are  children  of 
the  same  spirit  of  violence,  tyranny  and  per- 
jury. 

**If  Western  democracy  does  not  end  both, 
but  leaves  the  nations  of  Eastern  Europe  to  be 
stripped  by  Anarchical  bands,  the  whole  world 
will  be  exhausted  and  civilization  will  be  de- 
stroyed. The  Esthonian  people  appeal  to  the 
great  old  democracies  of  the  West  and  hope  that 
the  nations  which  saved  Belgium  and  Serbia  will 
not  leave  them  in  the  lurch. ' ' 

In  February,  1919,  at  the  invitation  of  Lenine, 
the  Socialist  party  of  Norway  sent  a  committee 
to  Russia  to  investigate  practical  workings  of 
Bolshevism  in  its  original  habitat.  On  their 
way  back  they  passed  through  Stockholm, 
where  the  newspaper  called  the  Social  Demo- 
kraten  published  statements  from  them  em- 
bodying their  conclusions.  As  the  Social 
Demokraten  is  the  organ  of  the  Socialist  party 


292      BOLSHEVISM   AND  THE   UNITED   STATES 

of  Sweden  there  is  no  likelihood  that  it  mis- 
quoted or  colored  the  findings. 

The  committee  found  that  the  Red  Terror 
continued  unabated.  ''Soldiers  belonging  to 
the  Red  army  lived  mostly  by  exactions  of  plun- 
der and  levying  of  blackmail.  A  summary  court 
was  unceasingly  at  work  emptying  the  prisons 
of  hostages." 

"The  President  of  one  of  the  revolutionary 
tribunals  is  named  Peters.*  He  told  the  com- 
mittee that  the  tribunals  together  had  not  put 
to  death  more  than  3,000  persons,  but  the  com- 
mittee found  later  that  this  was  a  great  under- 
estimation of  the  facts  as  there  were  over  500 
of  this  class  of  tribunals  at  work,  each  of  which 
must  be  credited  some  with  hundreds,  some  with 
thousands,  of  summary  executions. 


♦Peters  figures  in  Miss  Beatty's  book,  page  222  and  else- 
where. For  those  that  insist  that  every  man  must  be 
all  of  a  piece  I  offer  the  fact  that,  chief  executioner  of 
the  Bolshevic  regime  as  he  is,  he  has  still  warmth  and 
tenderness  of  nature  and  in  the  midst  of  his  employment 
revolts  mentally  against  it  and  wishes  he  were  back  in 
his  rose  garden  in  England.  He  has  an  English  wife  and 
children  of  whom  he  is  devotedly  fond.  I  believe  it  to  be 
a  fact  that  nothing  keeps  him  at  his  dreadful  work  but 
a  sense  of  duty  and  I  should  think  it  might  be  of  more 
value  to  society  to  discover  the  spring  of  that  sense  of 
duty  than  to  invent  new  ways  of  cursing  Bolshevism. 


A   CLOUD   OF   WITNESSES  293 

'*As  regards  the  workers,  they  could  not  be 
worse  off  than  in  Petrograd  and  Moscow,  where 
they  have  no  work  and  are  starving.  Starva- 
tion, moreover,  is  general,  and  it  is  no  vain 
word.  It  is  impossible  to  imagine  anything 
more  pitiful  than  conditions  prevailing  in  both 
capitals. 

"Complaints  against  the  Soviet  government 
are  bitter  despite  the  severity  of  the  police 
measures  and  the  spying  system  in  force.  Wail- 
ings  and  grumblings  are  heard  everywhere 
from  almost  everybody  one  talks  to. 

"The  starvation  is  mostly  due  to  faulty  ad- 
ministration and  the  deplorable  state  of  the  rail- 
road communications. 

"They  were  told  that  of  7,000  locomotives 
more  than  4,500  were  out  of  commission  while 
waiting  for  repairs.  One  of  the  committee  asked 
a  railroad  officer  why  they  were  not  repaired. 
He  said  that  the  men  were  too  weakened  by 
hunger  to  be  able  to  carry  out  such  fatiguing 
work.  It  takes  five  men  to  lift  a  weight  one 
man  could  raise  easily  before.  They  cannot 
work  at  even  light  jobs  more  than  a  couple  of 
hours  a  day. 

"Men  are  starving  because  the  locomotives 
are  sick,  and  the  locomotives  continue  sick  be- 
cause the  workmen  are  starving.    This  condi- 


294       BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

tion  is  now  met  with  constantly  in  everything 
Russian  except  in  the  vivid  imagination  of  the 
Bolshevist  leaders  who  continue  to  boast  that 
Bolshevism  is  conquering  the  world,  and  that 
all  peoples  are  being  converted  to  its  tenets,  im- 
posing them  by  force  on  reactionary  govern- 
ments. ' ' 

The  testimony  of  Mr.  Oudendyk,  for  many 
years  the  minister  of  Holland  to  Russia,  may 
fittingly  close  this  chapter.  On  arriving  at  Lon- 
don after  his  escape  from  Moscow  he  said : 

"I  wish  to  give  a  solemn  warning  to  the 
working  classes  of  all  nations.  Bolshevism,  I 
say  without  exaggeration,  is  the  end  of  civiliza- 
tion. I  have  known  Russia  intimately  for 
twenty  years,  and  never  have  the  working 
classes  of  Russia  suffered  as  they  are  suffering 
at  the  present  moment.  I  have  never  seen  or 
dreamed  of  the  possibility  of  such  corruption, 
tyranny,  and  the  absence  of  all  semblance  of 
freedom  as  there  is  in  Russia  as  at  present 
ruled.  Translated  into  practice  the  five 
points  of  Bolshevism  really  come  to  this:  (1) 
High  wages;  (2)  don't  work;  (3)  take  other 
people's  property;  (4)  no  punishment;  (5)  no 
taxation ;  and  I  suppose  there  will  always  be  a 


A   CLOUD   OF   WITNESSES  295 

certain  number  of  people  who  will  adopt  a  pro- 
gram which  in  practice  amounts  to  this.  That 
is  why,  having  seen  myself  the  disastrous 
effects  of  this  policy  on  all  classes  of  society, 
I  take  the  first  opportunity  on  my  arrival  in 
England  to  warn  the  public.  The  bulk  of  the 
workmen  in  Russia  are  to-day  far  and  away 
worse  off  than  they  ever  have  been,  and  the 
state  of  unemployment  is  simply  terrible.  When 
I  left  Petrograd  the  situation  was  one  of  utter 
starvation,  and  most  people  hardly  knew  how 
they  would  exist  through  the  following  day. 
Wherever  Bolshevism  rules  the  nation  has  been 
beaten  to  a  pulp,  and  is  utterly  helpless." 


CHAPTER  Xn 

RISE  AND  PROGRESS   OF  AMERICAN   BOLSHEVISM: 

From  the  foregoing  it  is  clear  that  Bolshe- 
vism and  the  traditional,  accepted  American 
conception  of  life  and  society  are  irreconcilable. 

Bolshevism  decries  and  denies  democracy, 
and  democracy  is  the  foundation  of  American 
life.  Bolshevism  frankly  proclaims  a  dictator- 
ship and  we  have  lately  concluded  an  appall- 
ingly expensive  war  to  prevent  the  spread  of 
autocracy.  Bolshevism  favors  violence,  which 
we  abhor,  and  war,  whereas  we  are  in  the 
mass  committed  to  peace.  It  abolishes  the 
methods  of  order  that  are  almost  formulas  with 
us.  It  is  basically  Anarchistic  whereas  we  more 
than  any  other  people  have  professed  hostility 
to  Anarchism.  It  recognizes  class  and  class 
government,  whereas  we  have  argued  that  in  a 
republic  classes  have  no  place.  It  is  grossly 
and  incurably  inefficient  and  we  profess  effi- 
ciency as  our  materialistic  religion. 

296 


I 


PROGRESS   OF   AMERICAN   BOLSHEVISM        297 

Its  record  for  disaster  is  incomparable 
among  all  the  movements  knoAvn  of  men.  It 
blighted  the  one  hope  that  Russia,  horribly- 
mangled  by  war,  might  be  restored  to  health  and 
strength.  As  we  have  seen  in  the  foregoing 
records  it  destroyed  a  democracy  of  singularly 
bright  promise  launched  upon  a  plan  more  ad- 
vanced than  any  other  men  had  known.  It 
overturned  a  government  that  had  begun  to  deal 
intelligently  with  the  great  Russian  problems 
of  land,  illiteracy  and  distribution  and  threw  all 
these  problems  into  such  chaos  that  even  the 
ablest  management  and  most  efficient  could  not 
in  years  of  effort  straighten  them. 

It  wrecked  economic  production  and  distribu- 
tion, was  the  first  or  second  cause  for  the  starv- 
ing of  huge  populations,  and  by  February  1, 
1919,  it  seemed  likely  to  produce  the  irretriev- 
able ruin  of  Russia  so  that  henceforth  she  would 
be  but  so  much  inert  flesh  to  be  carved  at  will 
by  Germany  and  Japan. 

Yet  on  that  same  date  there  were  in  the 
United  States  thousands  of  persons,  many  of 
them  of  exalted  personal  character,  that  be- 
lieved or  thought  they  believed  in  Bolshevism 
and  professed  a  desire  to  see  it  spread  to  other 
lands,  including  their  o^vn. 

Here  is  a  phenomenon  for  which  there  is  no 


298       BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

possible  explanation  except  that  offered  in  a 
foregoing  chapter. 

In  the  last  analysis,  Bolshevism  is  not 
really  a  creed  or  a  doctrine  or  a  system. 
Bolshevism  is  an  order  of  mind.  I  neither 
jest  nor  would  I  try  to  throw  the  slightest 
discredit  on  the  many  sincere,  upright,  con- 
scientious men  and  women  that  have  embraced 
Bolshevism  with  the  honest  thought  of  the 
general  good.  But  I  think  it  is  e\ddent  from 
the  foregoing  records  that  if  we  separate  from 
the  mass  of  the  American  Bolshevists  those 
that  are  not  aware  of  the  thing  they  advocate 
there  is  nothing  to  predicate  about  the  rest  ex- 
cept an  unfinished  mental  operation.  And  that 
I  believe  is  the  key  to  the  Lenine  mystery,  to  all 
his  works  and  to  most  of  his  followers.  With 
the  utmost  sincerity,  with  a  dream  of  a  working- 
class  Utopia,  with  at  bottom  a  kind  and  generous 
impulse,  they  are  unable  to  see  that  the  in- 
evitable consequence  of  the  methods  they  advo- 
cate always  must  be  a  chaos  far  worse  for  the 
working  class  than  the  present  injustice  it  suf- 
fers. It  was  better  for  the  workers  of  Petro- 
grad  to  continue  to  live  under  a  system  that 
robbed  them  of  a  part  of  the  wealth  they  created 
than  to  starve  to  death ;  it  was  better  to  live  in 
poor  quarters  than  to  have  none  at  all.    It  was 


PROGRESS   OF   AMERICAN   BOLSHEVISNf        299 

better  to  have  the  old  capitalistic  machinery  for 
production  and  distribution,  wrong  and  ac- 
cursed and  halting  as  that  was,  than  to  have 
no  machinery  at  all  and  to  watch  the  infinite 
miser>^  of  millions  deprived  of  that  produc- 
tion and  distribution.  It  is  better  to  have  a 
poor  system  of  society  than  none,  and  even  in- 
efficiency is  not  so  bad  as  chaos. 

Not  all  the  Americans  that  are  sympathetic 
with  Bolshevism  or  the  Bolshevic  cause  would 
insist  that  a  Bolshevic  government  be  estab- 
lished here.  I  may  reiterate  that  statement. 
Yet  if  we  count  together  Bolshevists,  pro-Bol- 
shevists and  near  Bolshevists,  temperamental, 
emotional  and  all,  we  have  a  total  of  potential 
Bolshevist  activity  much  greater  than  is  gen- 
erally believed.  As  to  that,  let  me  cite  the 
facts : 

1.  Socialists.  At  a  meeting  of  Socialists  held 
in  a  large  hall  in  Chicago  about  November  18, 
1918,  Mr.  Victor  Berger,  for  many  years  a  well- 
kno^vn  Socialist  leader  and  but  a  short  time 
before  elected  to  Congress  on  the  Socialist 
ticket,  declared  that  he  was  a  Bolshevist  and 
that  whoever  professed  Socialism  and  was  not 
a  Bolshevist  was  not  a  Socialist.  According  to 
the  published  reports   the  sentiment  was  re- 


300      BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

ceived  with  rapturous  applause  by  the  audi- 
ence and  reiterated  by  other  speakers. 

Most  of  the  Socialist  newspapers  of  the 
United  States  are  avowedly  Bolshevist  in  their 
sympathies  and  tendencies.  Eminent  writers 
a;nd  speakers  of  the  Socialist  party  frankly 
defend  or  laud  the  Bolshevist  idea. 

If,  then,  Mr.  Berger  was  right,  as  every 
reason  indicates,  a  large  part,  at  least,  of  the 
Socialist  party  of  America  must  be  Bolshevist. 
In  1912  that  party  cast  1,000,000  votes.  In 
1916  the  number  had  diminished  to  about 
600,000,  but  in  1917  147,000  votes,  about  one- 
fourth  of  the  total,  were  cast  for  the  Socialist 
candidate  for  mayor  of  New  York.  It  is  evi- 
dent, then,  that  here  is  a  considerable  element 
of  Bolshevist  strength,  despite  the  fact  that  the 
war  split  the  Socialist  party  of  America  into 
two  groups  and  that  the  wing  loyal  to  the 
United  States  is  utterly  opposed  to  Bolshevism. 

2.  The  So-called  Pacifists.  The  term  is  mis- 
leading, because  all  good  men  are  pacifists. 
But  it  means  here  persons  that  opposed  the 
declaration  of  war  by  the  United  States  in 
April,  1917.  A  great  many  of  these  are  now 
Bolshevists.  Some,  undoubtedly,  were  stung 
into  this  position  by  a  feeling  of  resentment 
against  the  government  that  despite  all  protest 


PROGRESS   OF   AMERICAN   BOLSHEVISM        301 

insisted  upon  getting  on  with  the  war,  resent- 
ment against  the  espionage  act  and  its  enforce- 
ment, resentment  against  the  sunnnary  dealings 
with  Germans  and  German  apologists.  Con- 
ceivably, also,  the  manifest  failure  of  all  their 
predictions  tended  in  no  way  to  allay  this 
resentment.  Any  retrospect  now  shows  that 
the  entrance  of  the  United  States  into  the  war 
was  not  a  blunder,  but  one  of  the  greatest  boons 
ever  conferred  upon  mankind;  that  if  we  had 
followed  the  pacifist  desire  and  held  aloof  the 
world  would  have  groaned  on  under  years  of 
bloody  strife  ending  at  last  in  the  triumph  of 
huge  rascality  and  despotism  and  the  practical 
death  of  the  principles  of  democracy  by  which 
alone  human  progress  is  possible.  All  this  is 
apparent  now  even  to  the  pacifist  observation; 
but  it  was  just  as  apparent  April  6,  1917,  to 
any  person  that  would  take  the  trouble  to  look 
and  to  think.  Some  of  those  that  were  unable 
to  achieve  these  simple  operations  subsequently 
found  themselves  strong  advocates  of  Brest- 
Litovsk.  This  w^as  the  way  to  make  peace; 
peace  without  victory  and  leaving  no  ill-will, 
they  described  it;  and  by  this  declension  they 
came  to  be  the  champions  of  the  men  that  en- 
dowed the  world  with  Brest-Litovsk,  the  same 
being  Lenine  and  Trotsky. 


302       BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

The  explanation,  I  admit,  seems  inadequate, 
but  how  otherwise  are  we  to  account  for  the 
presence  among  the  pro-Bolshevists  of  eminent 
pacifists  that  have  never  before  taken  the 
slightest  interest  in  any  proletarian  movement; 
nay,  who  have  been  esteemed  among  the  bit- 
terest enemies  of  labor  and  its  organizations? 
Yet  a  few  years  ago  and  no  one  else  would 
have  been  so  horrified  at  the  suggestion  of 
working-class  government.  In  no  other  respect 
have  they  undergone  reformations  so  far  as  I 
am  aware.  The  change  must  be  due  to  some 
great  convulsion  and  none  other  is  so  great 
as  this.  C'est  la  guerre,  let  us  say  in  charity 
and  so  conclude  a  speculation  otherwise  hope- 
less. 

3.  A  considerable  group  of  men  and  women, 
by  conviction  sympathetic  with  labor  but  not 
of  it,  that  instinctively  feel  an  interest  in  any 
movement  that  purports  to  be  for  what  is 
termed  the  working  class.  Bolshevism  is  called, 
however  unjustly,  a  movement  for  working- 
class  government  and  probably  that  one  phrase 
has  won  to  it  a  larger  support  in  the  United 
States  than  any  other  feature  connected  with  it. 

4.  Certain  intellectuals,  clergymen,  uni- 
versity professors,  educators,  writers  and 
artists.    These  are  generally  men  of  liberal  in- 


PROGRESS   OF   AMERICAN   BOLSHEVISM        303 

clinings,  doubtless,  but  never  before  lined  up 
with  a  radical  cause. 

For  them,  I  ought  to  say,  exists  a  certain 
excuse. 

We  may  as  well  admit  that  the  exterior  of 
Bolshevism  possesses  to  the  fervent  and  unre- 
flective  mind  some  aspects  that  are  alluring, 
and  one  that  is  still  more.  To  the  proposal 
that  representation  in  legislative  bodies  shall 
be  on  the  basis  of  occupation  and  not  on  the 
basis  of  geography  I  have  not  heard  of  a  logi- 
cal objection.  The  suggestion  did  not  originate 
with  any  Bolshevic;  it  was  old  before  Bol- 
shevism was  born ;  but  the  Bolshevic  movement 
is  nevertheless  entitled  to  credit  for  its  support. 
In  truth,  our  civilization  has  become  industrial 
while  our  political  machinery  is  all  rural  and 
feudalistic.  The  anomaly  will  have  to  be 
abolished  some  day  and  this  is  the  best  sub- 
stitute so  far  devised.  There  is  much  more 
sense  in  allowing  the  carpenters  to  have  their 
Congressman  and  the  iron  molders  theirs,  and 
the  brick  layers  theirs,  than  in  taking  a  map 
and  putting  all  the  people  in  one  neighborhood 
or  one  state  into  one  miscellaneous  mess, 
allowing  them  to  scramble  out  with  a  Congress- 
man that  nobody  knows  and  that  knows  noth- 


304      BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

ing  about  them  or  the  real  problems  of  their 
daily  lives. 

But  to  believe  in  this  excellent  and  salutary 
reform  you  are  not  also  obligated  to  believe 
in  government  by  one-sixth  of  the  population, 
nor  to  extenuate  murder,  pillage,  arson,  autoc- 
racy and  waste.  Many  of  the  intellectual 
American  Bolshevists  seem  to  have  thought 
this  necessary,  but  it  is  not.  We  shall  have 
the  rectification  of  our  political  system  and 
we  shall  have  industrial  justice  and  all  without 
barricades  in  the  streets  or  wading  through 
blood. 

And  I  may  pause  here  to  protest  also  against 
the  notion,  somewhat  zealously  spread  in 
America,  that  this  change  in  the  legislative 
basis  (called  without  the  least  reason,  the 
Soviet  form  of  government)  constitutes  Bol- 
shevism, that  one  opposes  it  who  opposes 
Bolshevism,  that  Bolshevists  have  any  kind 
of  patent  upon  it  or  exclusive  rights  in  it,  that 
their  triumph  means  its  adoption.  These  are 
singularly  boyish  subterfuges  for  a  movement 
that  is  hailed  as  the  regeneration  of  mankind. 
Students  and  thinkers  in  all  parts  of  the  world 
have  supported  and  will  continue  to  support 
a  change  so  salutary,  but  they  will  be  unable 
to  think  that  it  can  be  made  to  cohere  with  the 


PROGRESS   OF   AMERICAN   BOLSHEVISM        305 

Lenine  theory  of  government  for  the  simple 
reason  that  under  a  dictatorship  the  manner  in 
which  elections  are  held  can  make  not  the  least 
difference  nor  be  of  the  least  importance. 

And  this  brings  me  to  another  fact  I  mark 
while  passing,  that  many  of  these  intellectuals, 
and  of  course  all  the  pacifists,  are  by  convic- 
tion absolutely  opposed  to  war  and  yet  they 
tolerate,  and  easily  (if  one  may  judge  by  their 
comments),  an  organization  that  makes  war 
and  makes  it  with  methods  the  most  savage, 
cruel  and  ruthless.  A  very  small  part  of  the 
shuddering  horror  with  which  these  excellent 
persons  denounced  America's  entry  into  the 
conflict  if  now  devoted  to  the  kind  of  war  the 
Bolshevic  government  of  Russia  makes,  would 
do  much  to  better  the  general  opinion  of  the 
pacifist  judgment ;  but  so  far  I  have  been  unable 
to  discern  any  utterances  of  this  kind.  Even 
when  the  Bolshevics  made  wanton  and  sense- 
less war  on  Poland,  Ukrainia  and  Roumania, 
even  when  they  enacted  an  espionage  law  that 
made  ours  look  like  the  regulations  of  a  Sunday- 
school,  even  when  they  instituted  universal 
military  service  with  a  penalty  of  death  for 
those  that  held  back,  came  from  these  quarters 
no  word  of  objection.  I  can  only  suppose  that 
war  is  to  be  regarded  as  a  crime  when  car- 


306       BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

ried  on  by  the  United  States,  but  otherwise  is 
negligible  or  even  praiseworthy. 

But  besides  the  excellent  salient  of  indus- 
trial representation  in  the  Bolshevic  program 
it  had  another  feature  that  excused  a  certain 
measure  of  sympathetic  support  from  those  not 
well  informed  about  it. 

The  place  of  labor  in  the  present  organ- 
ization of  society  is  highlv  illogical.  Labor 
creates  all  the  wealth  of  the  world  and  gets 
but  a  small  part  of  the  wealth  it  creates.  Labor 
is  the  indispensable  part  of  all  social  effort 
and  it  stands  at  the  bottom  of  the  social 
scale.  Labor  is  the  business  of  the  overwhelm- 
ing majority  of  the  population  and  its  voice  is 
the  least  regarded  in  government.  Labor  bears 
all  else  upon  its  shoulders  and  too  often  dwells 
in  poverty,  darkness  and  want. 

In  a  rational  world  the  useful  would  be  the 
honorable.  In  our  world  the  honorable  has 
been  the  parasitic  and  the  useless. 

Strong  in  the  minds  of  all  just  men  must  be 
the  recoil  against  such  a  system.  Here  comes 
a  movement  that  promises  to  set  right  the 
ancient  wrong.  Instead  of  government  by  the 
fortunate  and  the  propertied  it  proposes  gov- 
ernment by  the  working  class.  It  is  a  thing 
long  a  vague,   but  much   admired   shibboleth 


PROGRESS   OF   AMERICAN   BOLSHEVISM        307 

among  a  class  of  reformers ;  workinG^-class  gov- 
ernment, easy  to  say  and  hard  to  define.  But 
the  sound  of  it,  at  least,  is  good.  We  stand 
for  justice  to  labor;  this  must  be  the  thing  that 
in  the  comfortable  seclusion  of  our  parlors  we 
have  stood  for.    Does  it  not  come  so  labeled? 

We  are  also  to  remember  the  power  of  a 
phrase.  The  illimitable  wrong  the  producers 
suffer  is  due  to  the  structural  faults  in  modem 
society  and  will  not  be  done  away  with  until 
the  faults  are  cured.  This  change  a  great 
many  of  us  have  justly  called  the  Revolution. 
But  revolution  is  a  word  of  various  shades  of 
meaning.  When  it  is  accepted  to  mean  riot, 
bloodshed  and  street  fighting,  then  it  no  longer 
applies  to  the  changes  that  must  take  place 
in  the  social  structure  because  lasting  reforms 
are  not  secured  in  such  ways.  Sacrifice  is  the 
price  of  progress,  but  not  paid  through  chaos. 
Yet  there  is  no  denying  that  the  ideas  have  be- 
come mixed  and  it  is  not  possible  for  many  well- 
meaning  persons  to  understand  how  one  can 
be  in  favor  of  the  social  revolution  and  still  see 
in  the  style  of  revolution  proclaimed  at  Petro- 
grad  nothing  but  disaster  to  the  cause  of 
labor. 

That  cause,  which  is  identical  with  the  cause 
of  democracy  and  part  of  it,  will  gain  nothing 


308       BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

anywhere  by  the  substituting  of  one  brand  of 
autocracy  for  another,  the  rule  of  one  class 
in  the  community  for  the  rule  of  another.  It 
will  gain  nothing  by  taking  on  the  philosophy 
of  revenge.  It  will  gain  nothing  by  tearing 
to  pieces  the  machinery  by  which  at  present 
society  is  fed  and  housed,  and  building  no 
machinery  in  the  place  thereof.  There  is  no 
room  for  doubt  that  the  present  machinery 
is  old,  lumbering  and  mischief  making.  But 
it  does  in  a  costly  and  thumb-handed  way 
enable  mankind  to  go  on  and  so  must  any  ma- 
chine that  may  be  offered  in  its  place.  Theories 
are  a  poor  substitute  for  bread  and  meat. 

We  need  not  overlook  also  the  influence  of 
a  strange  revolt,  often  in  minds  where  it  was 
not  to  be  expected,  against  democracy.  We 
see  that  the  measure  of  democracy  so  far 
reached  has  not  abolished  poverty,  inequality, 
misery  and  darkness.  Hence,  impatient  souls 
leap  to  the  conclusion  that  it  is  a  failure  and 
are  weary  of  it.  Government  of  the  people, 
by  the  people,  for  the  people  does  not  work. 
The  people  do  not  know  how  to  govern.  You 
have  had  in  the  United  States  one  hundred  and 
forty  years,  or  thereabout,  of  this  democracy 
and  to-day  the  overwhelming  majority  of  the 
people  go  to  the  polls  and  vote  for  the  suprem- 


PROGRESS   OF   AMERICAN   BOLSHEVISM         309 

acy  of  their  exploiters  instead  of  voting  for 
themselves.  In  Great  Britain  the  governing 
class  governs  exactly  as  much  as  when  it  alone 
had  the  franchise.  The  people  need  a  dictator- 
ship. Lenine  calls  it  the  Dictatorship  of  the 
Proletariat.  What  difference  does  a  name 
make?  The  main  thing  is  to  get  the  power 
concentrated  into  the  hands  of  a  few  men  that 
will  use  it  efficiently.  Let  us  have  a  state  in 
which  the  Avorker  gets  all  the  wealth  he  creates 
and  it  will  not  be  necessary  for  him  to  vote. 
There  is  even  in  the  labor  movement,  and 
conspicuously  in  the  labor  movement  of  Eng- 
land, a  reaction  against  democratic  progress. 
You  AA'ill  not  usually  talk  long  with  an  English 
labor  leader,  especially  if  you  are  an  American, 
without  hearing  some  jibes  at  the  doctrine  of 
equality  and  some  doubts,  at  least,  about  the 
worth  of  political  democracy.  For  the  present 
the  war  has  accentuated  this  skepticism. 
After  so  great  sacrifices  to  keep  democracy 
alive  and  such  vigorous  defense  of  it,  such  a 
reaction,  superficial  and  temporary,  was  to  be 
expected.  Men  demanded  of  it  impossible 
things  and  professed  disappointment  that  it  did 
not  cure  influenza  or  make  everybody  rich. 
And  thus  was  provided  an  excellent  atmos- 


310       BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

phere  in  which  to  show  forth  the  wizardry  of 
the  new  order. 

Besides  these  we  have  in  every  community 
an  element  that  is  congenitally  alien  to  democ- 
racy. The  marrow  of  their  bones  has  never 
given  up  the  instinct  of  the  monarchy  bred 
into  generations  of  their  ancestors.  After  all, 
democracy  is  a  new  thing  in  this  world.  Two 
or  three  generations  of  it  could  not  be  expected 
to  outweigh  the  atavism  of  countless  centuries 
of  the  other  thing.  The  same  recrudescence 
that  abroad  produces  that  strange  creature,  the 
American  snob  on  his  travels;  the  same  sur- 
viving instinct  that  has  at  times  so  weird  a 
showing  in  the  American  educated  woman  and 
the  American  Association  Opposed  to  Woman 
Suffrage,  for  instance,  lays  hold  with  joy  on 
the  suggestion  of  Lenine.  A  few  are  sent  into 
the  world  endowed  with  superior  intelligence. 
Let  these  few  rule. 

5.  The  Anarchists,  philosophical  and  those 
that  adhere  to  the  Propaganda  of  the  Deed. 

Both  were  in  equal  measure  delighted  with 
the  Lenine  proposals.  To  the  average  person 
an  Anarchist  means  a  man  with  long  hair  and 
an  aversion  to  soap  who  with  bombs  and  pistols 
threatens  the  peace  of  the  world.  The  average 
person  might  be  somewhat  astonished  to  know 


PROGRESS   OF   AMERICAN   BOLSHEVISM        311 

beneath  what  imposing  roofs  the  vagrant  now 
shelters.  Philosophical  Anarchy  has  become  in 
some  places  a  fad.  It  has  a  piquant  taste  to 
it,  for  one  thing,  and  then,  what  a  powerful 
excuse!  When  a  well-groomed  gentleman  in 
perfect  evening  form  announces  to  his  guests, 
all  of  his  own  order,  that  he  is  an  Anarchist, 
an  enjoyable  shudder  runs  through  the  assem- 
bly and  a  reputation  for  deviltry  is  cheaply 
and  swiftly  achieved.  And  armed  with  philo- 
sophical Anarchism  one  seems  to  escape  all 
responsibility  for  existing  conditions.  If  the 
world  were  wise  and  Anarchistic  it  would  have 
none  of  these  troubles.  Therefore,  pull  the 
bedclothes  of  Anarchism  over  your  head  and 
go  to  sleep. 

The  philosophical  Anarchist  seems  to  have 
hailed  Lenine  as  a  long  lost  brother,  he  coming 
to  upset  things  and  protest  against  whatever 
exists.  It  was  safe  hailing — all  the  way  from 
America  to  Russia.  Confronted  with  Bolshe- 
vism as  it  really  is,  with  grim  starvation 
looking  in  at  the  window  and  a  Red  Guard 
searching  the  house,  it  is  to  be  doubted  if  the 
salutation  would  have  been  equally  joyous. 
However,  there  was  and  is  plenty  of  the  long 
distance  order  of  sympathy  among  intellectual 


312      BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

men  and  women  that  had  no  idea  of  including 
horse  steaks  in  their  own  diet. 
[■  Physical  force  Anarchists  applauded  the  new 
movement  because  it  was  to  them  all  in  their 
line  of  work.  It  meant  trouble  and  upheaval, 
riot  and  chaos,  all  of  which  they  had  conceived 
to  make  for  their  own  particular  doctrine. 
While  Lenine  could  not  be  accounted  a  disciple 
of  theirs  he  held  some  views  in  common  with 
them  and  they  saw  plainly  that  Bolshevism 
was  a  station  on  their  road.  In  Russia  most 
of  the  black-flag  Anarchists  were  enthusiastic 
supporters  of  the  Bolshevic  regime.  In  the 
United  States  any  Bolshevic  manifestation 
would  be  secure  of  Anarchist  cooperation. 

The  possibilities  of  the  physical  force  An- 
archists may  be  guessed  from  the  attempted 
assassination  of  Premier  Clemenceau  —  and 
some  narrow  escapes  by  other  men  of  promi- 
nence. 

6.  Certain  elements  among  the  Reactionaries. 
This  is  a  force  not  usually  accounted  with,  and 
yet  for  a  time,  at  least,  it  might  be  a  powerful 
factor.  Already  it  has  made  itself  felt  in  ways 
not  publicly  revealed.  There  is  reason  to  be- 
lieve that  some  persons  whose  convictions  and 
interests  coincide  toward  the  most  extreme  con- 
servatism look  with  secret  satisfaction  upon 


PROGRESS   OF   AMERICAN   BOLSHEVISM        313 

the  Bolslievic  experiment  because  tliey  believe 
its  total  manifest  failure  will  make  for  the 
safety  of  feudalistic  ideals.  This  is  the  ex- 
planation of  the  active  support  the  Bolshevics 
have  had  in  some  unexpected  American 
quarters — shall  we  include  Wall  Street  itself! 
Every  organization  in  America  that  has  sought 
to  furnish  economic  relief  to  Russia  or  made 
other  efforts  calculated  to  cut  the  Bolslievic 
growth  before  it  has  fully  ripened  has  been 
opposed  by  some  overt  but  powerful  agency. 
Whether  the  men  engaged  in  these  futile  en- 
terprises are  right  in  ascribing  their  troubles 
wholly  to  definite  reactionary  interests  I  do  not 
know,  but  the  fact  of  some  degree  of  conserva- 
tive sympathy  and  even  cooperation  is  certain. 
In  England  and  France  it  is  well  known  and 
equally  understandable.  In  these  countries  in- 
vestors, chiefly  banks,  hold  great  quantities  of 
Russian  bonds.  The  Russian  national  debt  is 
about  twenty-nine  billion  dollars  of  which  the 
most  powerful  banks  in  America  hold  about  one 
billion  dollars  and  the  rest  is  held  in  England 
and  France.  There  the  banks  continue  to  ad- 
vance to  other  holders  the  semi-annual  interest 
on  these  bonds,  charging  the  pajTnents  against 
some  Russian  government  yet  to  be. 
Here,  then,  is  a  great  force  constantly  grow- 


314      BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

ing  greater.  In  the  deliberate  view  of  these 
interests,  or  most  of  them,  there  is  no  chance 
for  the  payment  of  the  bonds  and  the  interest 
charges  except  through  a  return  of  Kussia  to 
the  monarchical  form  of  government.  The 
reasoning  is  simple  but  effective.  So  long  as 
Russia  was  a  monarchy  it  paid  its  debts  and 
the  interest  thereon.  When  it  ceased  to  be  a 
monarchy  it  ceased  to  pay  its  debts  and  the 
interest  thereon.  We  absolutely  must  have 
these  debts  paid;  also  the  interest  thereon. 
Hence,  let  us  have  a  monarchy  in  Russia.  For 
some  months  these  interests  in  England  and 
France  listened  with  pleasure  to  the  dulcet 
murmurings  of  the  Russian  nobles  and  other 
wealthy  refugees  that  outlined  various  plans 
by  which  the  old  regime  could  be  restored. 
More  than  one  act  of  more  than  one  govern- 
ment was  influenced  in  consequence;  to  a 
great  extent  we  owe  to  this  source  the  move- 
ment for  intervention.  But  when  it  became 
apparent  that  while  the  exiled  nobles  were  very 
choice  fellows  and  adorned  any  drawing-room, 
their  vision  of  another  chapter  of  Czarism  in 
Russia  was  but  of  the  air  whereto  it  was  kin, 
hard-headed  business  men  began  to  seek  more 
practical  ways  of  insuring  their  bonds.  One 
way  to  do  this  would  be  to  let  the  Bolshevic 


PROGRESS   OF   AMERICAN   BOLSHEVISM        315 

sway  run  its  inevitable  course  to  complete 
smash  from  which  may  come  that  denouement 
most  desired  by  the  conservative  mind,  a  con- 
stitutional monarchy. 

It  is  also  conceivable  that  careful  observers 
among  the  most  conservative  element  have 
taken  note  of  the  storm  signals  now  flying  in 
so  many  parts  of  tlie  world  and  concluded  that 
the  surest  antidote  to  labor  unrest  and  dema- 
gogic agitation  would  be  the  spectacle  of  a 
proletarian  government  that  having  full  oppor- 
tunity had  ended  in  a  memorable  disaster. 

These  are,  in  a  way,  only  speculations,  so  far 
as  this  country  is  concerned.  Abroad  is  a 
different  matter.  But  even  here  the  fact  is  ap- 
parent that  extremes  are  meeting  in  Bolshevic 
support.  Anarchists  and  certain  wealthy  men  or 
interests  ordinarily  the  farthest  possible  re- 
moved from  Anarchy,  and  while  the  origin  may 
be  mere  guesswork  the  conjunction  remains 
sinister. 

7.  The  Industrial  Workers  of  the  World.  It 
is  to  be  assumed  that  the  entire  force  of  this 
organization  is  of  Bolshevic  faith  or  inclining. 
The  assumption  may  not  be  strictly  accurate 
for  all  of  the  members  do  not  seem  to  be  of 
one  mind  as  to  policy  or  principles.  But  es- 
sentially    they    are     either     Syndicalists     or 


316      BOLSHEVISM  AND  THE  UNITED   STATES 

Anarchists,  and  Bolshevism  is  first  cousin  to 
Syndicalism  on  one  side  and  to  Anarchism  on 
the  other.  How  much  actual  numerical  strength 
the  order  adds  to  the  possible  Bolshevist 
forces  of  the  United  States  I  do  not  know. 
Three  or  four  years  ago  it  had  more  than 
25,000  farm  workers  alone  and  its  total  mem- 
bership must  have  been  close  to  100,000.  It  still 
remains  strong  in  the  Pacific  Northwest,  but 
elsewhere  in  the  country  has  lately  lost  fol- 
lowers. Yet  we  should  be  foolish  to  deny  the 
power  of  its  members  to  make  trouble,  which 
is  out  of  all  proportion  to  their  numbers.  The 
municipalities  that  have  engaged  in  warfare 
with  them  need  not  be  reminded  of  this  fact. 
They  are  persistent,  resourceful  and  fearless 
fighters.  Many  of  them  have  been  so-called 
hoboes  or  tramping  vagrants  and  in  that  capa- 
city have  traveled  the  country  from  end  to 
end  and  gathered  an  intimate  knowledge  of 
localities  and  populations.  If,  therefore,  we 
should  ever  come  to  an  outbreak  of  violence 
over  this  issue,  the  Industrial  Workers  of  the 
World  would  assuredly  be  a  factor  not  to  be 
overlooked. 

But  if  we  should  ever  come  to  that  point 
or  near  it  there  might  be  other  factors  much 


PROGRESS   OF  AMERICAN   BOLSHEVISM        317 

less  expected  and  much  more  powerful.  The 
great  majority  of  organized  labor  in  this 
country  is  strongly  anti-Bolshevic.  Yet  so  com- 
plicated is  this  problem  and  so  many  sided  in 
its  possibilities  that  we  might  see  a  condition 
arising  in  which  organized  labor  and  all  per- 
sons sympathetic  with  it  might  be  compelled 
to  take  sides  with  a  Bolshevic  or  the  Bol- 
shevics. 

Follow  me  for  a  moment  and  see  if  this  is 
not  a  fact.  We  have  seen  in  the  United 
States  many  terrible  and  bitter  struggles  be- 
tween workingmen  and  their  employers.  I  will 
cite  from  the  records  of  two  years,  1913 
and  1914,  three  compelling  examples.  They 
are  the  strikes  of  the  coal  miners  in  West 
Virginia,  of  the  copper  miners  in  the  Calumet 
region  of  Michigan  and  of  the  coal  miners  in 
Colorado. 

Each  of  these  conflicts  was  in  plain  terms 
civil  war.  Battles  were  fought,  forces  maneu- 
vered, laws  defied.  Shocking  acts  of  violence 
were  committed.  In  West  Virginia  an  armored 
railroad  car  was  sent  through  a  town  inliab- 
ited  by  the  families  of  the  striking  miners  and 
from  it  riflemen  show^ered  bullets  upon  the 
sleeping  and  defenseless  women  and  children. 
In  Michigan  men  were  seized,  beaten,  shot  and 


318      BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

deported.    In  Colorado  the  warfare  culminated 
in  the  horror   of  Ludlow,*   an   atrocity  com- 


*  It  seems  that  these  things  are  easily  forgotten.  Per- 
haps by  a  large  part  of  the  community  they  are  never 
learned;  or  if  read  they  are  but  scanned  and  leave  no 
impression.  Only  a  few  years  have  passed  since  these 
tragic  disasters  and  already  they  are  doubted.  Let  me 
say  then  that  the  comments  I  have  offered  above  are  not 
mine  but  those  of  many  investigators,  some  of  them  official, 
including  committees  of  the  Congress  of  the  United  States 
and  an  important  Federal  commission.  Without  exception 
each  of  these  investigating  agencies  found  civil  war, 
abominable  lawlessness  and  shocking  cruelties.  As  to 
West  Virginia  I  quote  this  passage  from  the  report  of  the 
sub-committee  of  the  United  States  Senate  Committee  on 
Education  and  Labor,  which  in  1913  made  a  careful  in- 
quiry into  what  was  called  the  Paint  Creek  strike: 

"The  investigation  disclosed  that  large  quantities  of 
ammunition,  pistols,  shot  guns,  rifles  and  machine  guns 
were  brought  into  the  district  by  both  parties  to  the  con- 
troversy and  freely  used. 

"The  conditions  existing  in  this  district  for  many  months 
were  most  deplorable.  The  hostility  became  so  intense, 
the  conflict  so  fierce,  that  there  existed  in  this  district  for 
some  time  well  armed  forces  fighting  for  supremacy. 
Separate  camps,  organized,  armed  and  guarded  were  es- 
tablished. There  was  much  violence  and  some  murders. 
Pitched  battles  were  fought  by  the  contending  forces.  Law 
and  order  disappeared  and  life  was  insecure  for  both  sides. 
Operation  and  business  practically  ceased." 

As  to  the  armored  car,  which  now  seems  so  improbable 
to  persons  sitting  at  their  ease  in  full  security,  the  sub- 
committee gathered  indubitable  testimony  about  that.     It 


PROGRESS   OF   AMERICAN    BOLSHEVISM         319 

parable    to    some    of   the   deeds    of    the    Ger- 
mans in  Belgium,  women  and  children  being 

was  a  car  of  the  Chesapeake  &  Ohio  railroad,  lined  with 
steel  and  carrying  a  machine  gun. 

Charles  1>.  Elliott,  adjutant  general  of  the  state  of  West 
Virginia  and  actively  engaged  in  the  field  of  war  against 
the  strikers,  furnishes  at  pages  103-4  of  the  printed  testi- 
mony a  description  of  this  car.  He  said  that  the  ma- 
chine gun  stood  in  the  center  and  could  be  fired  from 
the  door  on  either  side.  On  the  night  of  February  7, 
1913,  the  strike  being  then  in  full  progress,  this  car  was 
run  about  eighteen  miles  over  the  Chesapeake  &  Ohio 
tracks  carrying  some  sheriff's  officers.  As  It  passed 
through  the  town  of  Holly  Grove,  inhabited  by  the  strik- 
ing miners,  It  opened  fire  with  its  machine  guns  on  the 
houses,  in  many  of  which  were  sleeping  women  and  chil- 
dren. Here  are  some  extracts  from  the  testimony  of  Mrs. 
Maud  Estep,  to  be  found  at  pages  460  and  following: 

"Mr.  Belcher  [examining  attorney].  'How  long  have 
you  lived  at  Holly  Grove?' 

"Mrs.  Estep.    'I  have  lived  there  since  last  April.' 

"Mr.  Belcher.    'Is  your  husband  living?' 

"Mrs.  Estep.    'No  sir.' 

"Mr.  Belcher.    'When  did  he  die?' 

"Mrs.  Estep.    'The  7th  of  February.' 

"Mr.  Belcher.   'What  caused  his  death,  if  you  know?' 

"Mrs.  Estep.  'Well,  he  was  shot  from  the  train,  I  sup- 
pose. The  train  was  up  there  and  they  were  shooting  from 
the  train  at  the  house.' 

"Mr.  Belcher.  'At  what  time  of  the  night  was  this,  Mrs. 
Estep?' 

"Mrs.  Estep.   'Between  10  and  11  o'clock  sometime.' 

"Mr.  Belcher.  'What  was  your  husband  doing  Immedi- 
ately before  he  was  shot?' 


320      BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED    STATES 

burned  alive  by  armed  men  enlisted  against 
strikers. 


"Mrs.  Estep,  'He  was  in  the  house  when  the  train  com- 
menced shooting  down  on  the  other  side.  We  were  all  in 
the  house,  sitting  there,  carrying  on  and  talking.  We  heard 
the  train  come  shooting,  and  he  hollered  for  us  to  go  to 
the  cellar,  and  he  went  out  the  front  door.' 

"Senator  Kenyon.  'When  did  you  know  your  husband 
was  shot?' 

"Mrs.  Estep.  'I  didn't  know  he  was  killed  until  after 
the  train  qvut  shooting,  and  I  heard  some  of  them  speak 
to  him  and  call  his  name  and  I  never  heard  him  answer.' " 

The  civil  war  in  Michigan  was  investigated  by  two  com- 
mittees, of  one  of  which  I  had  the  honor  to  be  a  member. 
From  one  of  these  reports  I  take  the  following  account  of 
the  deportation  of  two  men,  the  president  and  auditor  of 
the  Western  Federation  of  Miners: 

"We  have  carefiilly  investigated  this  event,  of  which  it  is 
difficult  to  speak  with  the  restraint  and  moderation  that  we 
feel  is  incumbent  upon  us  in  reporting  on  these  grave  mat- 
ters. No  shadow  of  doubt  is  left  in  our  minds  that  Mr. 
Meyer's  account  of  the  outrage  is  exactly  true,  except  in 
the  particular  that  he  much  understated  its  brutality  and 
savage  cruelty,  a  fact  understandable  from  his  weakened 
condition  after  the  treatment  he  had  received.  It  is  beyond 
question  that  a  mob  in  which  were  many  citizens  of  Han- 
cock and  vicinity  deemed  to  be  extremely  respectable  peo- 
ple, entered  Mr.  Moyer's  room  [in  a  hotel],  seized  him,  beat 
him,  shot  him  in  the  back,  hustled  him  through  the 
streets  and  across  the  bridge  to  the  railroad  station,  beat- 
ing him  while  he  was  pinioned  and  defenseless.  Finally, 
he  was  thrust  upon  a  railroad  train  and  carried  under  an 
armed  guard  out  of  the  state,  being  threatened  with  in- 
stant death  if  he  returned.     His  companion,  Charles  H. 


PROGRESS   OF   AMERICAN   BOLSHEVISM        321 

In  each  instance  the  basic  rights  guaranteed 
by  the  American  Constitution  were  by  the  sheer 

Tanner,  auditor  of  the  Western  Federation,  received  almost 
equally  inhuman  treatment  and  was  deported  with  him." 

Mr.  Tanner's  story  will  be  found  in  full  in  the  "Hear- 
ings before  a  Subcommittee  of  the  Committee  on  Mines 
and  Mining,  House  of  Representatives,  Sixty-third  Con- 
gress,  second   session,   pages   1300  to   130G." 

There  were  also  shootings  and  skirmishes  in  which  lives 
were  lost. 

As  to  Colorado  and  the  burning  of  the  tent  colony  at 
Ludlow,  I  take  the  testimony  of  Lieutenant  Colonel  Ed- 
ward J.  Boughton,  of  the  National  Guard  of  Colorado,  given 
in  volume  VII,  beginning  at  page  6919  of  the  Report  of 
the  Federal  Commission  on  Industrial  Relations.  Colonel 
Boughton,  like  General  Elliott,  was  active  in  the  war 
against  the  miners  and  cannot  therefore  be  accused  of 
being  prejudiced  in  their  favor. 

"Mr.  Boughton.  'At  the  time  of  the  beginning  of  the 
battle  in  the  morning,  it  was  a  ten  to  one  proposition. 
There  were  350,  at  least,  by  a  conservative  estimate,  of 
the  adversaries  armed.  There  were  34  militiamen,  but 
during  the  day  the  militiamen  were  reinforced.  They 
were  reinforced  from  Trinidad  with  another  machine  gun, 
also  placed  on  Water  Tank  Hill.' 

"Chairman  Walsh.  'How  many  were  there  of  the  Na- 
tional Guard  at  the  time  Mr.  Tikas  lost  his  life?' 

"Mr.  Boughton.  'Of  the  National  Guard  and  their  allies, 
over  100.  After  the  episode  of  the  killing  of  Tikas,  the 
battle  proceeded  to  the  taking  of  the  steel  bridges  over 
the  arroyo ;  and  that  ended  the  engagement.  The  troops, 
about  10  o'clock  at  night,  then  returned  to  the  tent  colony, 
partially  destroyed  by  fire.  A  brisk  wind  was  blowing 
from  the  west,  but  the  enlisted  men  and  civilians — I  will 


322       BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

will  of  the  powerful  employers  abolished 
throughout  the  regions  affected.  There  was  no 
longer  any  freedom  of  speech,  freedom  of  the 
press  or  right  of  assembly.  In  some  instances 
the  regularly  constituted  courts  were  super- 


have  to  explain  that  term  "civilian"  because  they  also  were 
enlisted  but  not  organized  as  militia — entered  the  tent 
colony  and  deliberately  spread  the  flames  from  one  tent 
to  another.  That  the  whole  tent  colony  would  have  been 
destroyed  at  some  time  during  the  night  by  fire  unless 
efforts  were  made  to  put  it  out  is  quite  apparent.  But  it 
was  extended  by  carrying  flames  from  one  tent  to  another.' 

"Chairman  Walsh.  'Where  was,  with  reference  to  where 
the  fire  started,  the  tent  in  which  the  bodies  were  found 
the  following  day?' 

"Mr.  Boughton.  'It  is  in  the  second  or  third  row  as  it 
faces  the  country  road.' " 

The  report  of  the  Subcommittee  of  the  House  Committee 
on  Mines  and  Mining,  which  investigated  the  Colorado 
strike,  says: 

"From  the  time  the  strike  was  called  until  the  Federal 
troops  were  sent  into  the  field  by  the  President  of  the 
United  States  there  was  a  series  of  battles  which  seemed 
to  be  fierce  while  they  lasted  and  a  number  of  people  were 
killed  and  wounded  on  both  sides.  The  most  severe  of 
these  battles  were  called  the  Forbes,  Berwind,  Seventh 
Street  in  Walesenburg,  La  Veta  and  Ludlow,  culminating 
in  the  greatest  and  most  destructive  of  all,  the  last  battle 
of  Ludlow  about  the  20th  of  April,  1914.  Ludlow  was 
the  place  near  which  the  families  of  the  miners  lived  in 
tents  after  they  left  the  coal  camps  when  the  strike 
began."     Report,   page  17. 


PROGRESS   OF   AMERICAN   BOLSHEVISM        323 

seded,  and  the  extraordinary  tribunals  set 
up  by  the  employers  tried  men  and  sen- 
tenced them  for  offenses  not  known  in  the 
statute  books. 

These  chapters  of  a  shameful  history  ought 
to  remind  us  that  violence  and  lawlessness 
attend  great  strikes  in  the  United  States.  Let 
us  then  suppose  a  probable  case.  We  have  in 
this  country  at  the  moment  some  unusually 
high-wage  scales.  We  are  shortly  to  have 
great  numbers  of  unemployed  men  for  whom 
no  provision  has  been  made.  Two  such  tempt- 
ing conditions  at  once  only  wise  employers  will 
be  able  to  withstand,  and  West  Virginia, 
Michigan  and  Colorado  have  shown  plentiful 
proof  that  many  employers  are  not  wise.  Let 
us  suppose,  then,  an  attempt  to  lower  existing 
wages  by  taking  advantage  of  the  common  un- 
employment. 

This  will  mean  great  strikes,  for  organized 
labor  is  resolutely  determined  not  to  go  back 
to  the  old  wage  conditions.  Suppose,  then, 
these  strikes  to  be  combatted  with  armed 
guards,  armored  cars,  deportations  and  illegal 
arrests.  Suppose  the  right  of  free  speech  to  be 
abolished  by  the  employers  and  let  us  say  a 
Bolshevic  to  be  the  victim  of  the  aggression. 
I  should  like  to  say  very  plainly  to  the  employ- 


324       BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

ing  class  that  in  such  an  event  all  organized 
labor  in  this  country  and  all  the  radical 
element,  no  matter  how  much  opposed  to 
Bolshevism  as  a  doctrine,  would  be  on  that 
Bolshevist's  side,  and  fighting  for  him. 

Clearly,  then,  this  is  a  delicate  situation  that 
we  face  and  if  we  are  to  come  out  of  it  safely 
there  must  be  absolutely  a  spirit  of  concession, 
good-will  and  kindness  on  the  part  of  all  em- 
ployers. We  want  no  violence  in  this  country, 
no  street  fighting,  no  barricades  and  no  class 
warfare.  Not  merely  because  we  have  a  con- 
stitutional prejudice  against  war  but  because 
progress  is  to  be  made  only  through  the  condi- 
tions and  methods  of  peace.  Violence  achieves 
nothing  but  early  or  late  disaster;  the  world  is 
to  be  bettered  by  steadily  gaining  point  upon 
point  and  not  by  pulling  down  good  and  bad 
together  into  the  dust  of  the  desert.  But 
violence  is  exactly  what  impends  unless  with 
wide-open  eyes  and  minds  we  recognize  the 
changed  conditions  that  have  come  from  the 
war. 

We  think  that  in  this  country  we  are  secure 
against  the  Bolshevic  infection:  no  Bolshevics 
or  Spartacists  for  us.  Strange  delusion!  Let 
us  suppose  again  a  bitterly  fought  strike  grow- 
ing out  of  an  attempt  to  reduce  wages.    Here 


PROGRESS   OF   AMERICAN    BOLSHEVISM        325 

comes  a  Bolslievic  agitator  and  to  desperate 
men,  smarting  under  the  acute  sense  of  injus- 
tice and  wrong,  the  victims  of  lawless  private 
aggression,  shot  at  and  beaten  by  private  and 
unautliorized  armies,  watching  before  their 
eyes  the  whole  system  of  legal  protection  dis- 
solve before  the  mere  might  of  dollars,  he 
preaches  the  Bolslievic  creed,  a  condition  of 
society  in  which  labor  is  to  turn  the  tables 
upon  its  wrongers,  in  which  the  producers  are 
to  have  the  power  now  exercised  by  the  non- 
producers,  in  which  the  producers  are  to  be 
supreme  and  possess  all  the  fruits  of  industry. 
Men  would  be  more  than  flesh  and  blood  if  they 
did  not  at  such  a  time  listen  to  such  preach- 
ments. 

Imagine  also  that  at  such  a  juncture  there 
should  appear  some  of  the  Intellectual  Bolshe- 
vics  or  Anarchists,  clergymen  or  former  clergy- 
men, writers,  college  professors,  reformers,  and 
should  add  their  authority,  knowledge  and 
eloquence  to  the  Bolshevic  appeal.  An  outbreak 
of  Bolshevism  would  be  as  sure  as  the  sun's 
rising.  And  who  will  be  bold  enough  to  say 
that  this  very  combination  of  conditions  is  not 
the  likeliest  of  all  possibilities? 

Of  course,  that  does  not  mean  that  there  will 
be  an  American  Lenine,  nor  that  Bolshevism 


326       BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

will  ever  grasp  the  reins  of  power  here.  But 
it  would  surely  mean  some  terrible  scenes  and 
a  deepening  of  class  hatred  that  would  last  for 
years  and  bring  forth  God  knows  what  more 
of  misery  and  suffering. 


CHAPTER  Xm 

PALLIATIVES  AND  REMEDIES 

And  we  are  to  remember  also,  if  you  please, 
that  there  are  other  manifestations  of  Bolshe- 
vism than  the  Revolutionary  Tribunal  and  the 
overworked  firing  squad  for  capitalists.  We 
are  having  in  England  Bolshevic  developments 
that  are  never  known  by  that  name  and  an 
extent  of  Bolshevic  sympathy  that  would  as- 
tonish easy-going  American  souls  if  they  knew 
of  it.  The  Shop  Steward  movement  is  mostly  a 
Bolshevic  sjnuptom.  It  has  swept  over  all  in- 
dustrial England  and  no  one  in  this  country 
has  called  attention  to  its  perilous  and  Anarch- 
istic significance.  It  displaces  the  trade  unions 
and  puts  all  the  power  of  striking  into  the  hands 
of  representatives  that  have  no  responsibility 
to  any  organization  but  can,  T\athout  a  moment's 
warning,  without  a  referendum  and  without  dis- 
cussion, order  a  strike  on  or  a  strike  off.  Each 
room  in  a  factory  has  its  shop  steward,  the 
shop  stewards  of  each  factory  make  up  a  coun- 

327 


328       BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

cil,  and  the  Council  is  nothing  more  nor  less 
than  a  Soviet  on  the  Bolshevic  plan — in  full 
working  order  in  the  heart  of  England ! 

For  many  years  it  has  been  the  custom  of 
many  employers  in  this  country  and  England 
to  curse  the  trade  union  as  the  bane  of  busi- 
ness. They  did  not  know  when  they  were  well 
off.  Those  that  have  any  wit  ought  now  to  turn 
to  and  help,  support  and  cherish  the  trade 
union,  for  it  is  their  best  friend.  It  stands  be- 
tween them  and  the  Shop  Steward ;  between  them 
and  a  turbulent  control  of  industry  compared 
with  which  the  worst  thing  ever  alleged  against 
a  trade  union  would  seem  like  a  joy.  The  trade 
union  proceeds  with  method,  system,  delibera- 
tion. It  does  not  order  a  strike  without  debate 
and  the  verdict  of  the  ballot  box.  It  has  re- 
sponsible officers;  it  has  a  constitution  and  a 
discernible  policy.  The  Shop  Steward  orders 
a  strike  the  moment  the  fancy  takes  him  and 
for  any  cause  that  appeals  to  his  own  mind.  At 
the  waving  of  his  hand  the  work  stops.  Gentle- 
men of  the  employing  order,  what  think  you  of 
that  contrast? 

As  I  write  the  returning  soldiers  are  begin- 
ning to  mass  up  in  Great  Britain  and  every  day 
reveals  the  restless  spirit  that  has  possessed 
them.    Soldiers  on  leave  are  ceasing  to  salute 


PALLIATIVES   AND   REMEDIES  329 

their  officers.  In  the  month  of  February  tv/o 
ugly  mutinies  occurred  among  soldiers  that  had 
been  ordered  to  return  to  the  front.  I  do  not 
know  how  anything  could  be  more  sinister  than 
a  mutiny  among  British  troops ;  nothing  of  the 
kind  has  been  known  for  generations.  At  the 
same  moment  the  situation  in  some  parts  of  the 
continent  was  so  bad  that  in  at  least  one  of  the 
Allied  countries  it  was  regarded  as  an  even 
chance  whether  the  winter  would  pass  without 
a  Bolshevic  uprising,  and  if  it  should  come 
the  effect  of  it  would  inevitably  spread  to  Eng- 
land, whence  all  the  world  would  be  likely  to 
feel  something  of  it. 

To  workingmen  so  minded  no  one  need  say 
that  the  Bolshevic  experiment  has  been  a  fail- 
ure. Let  it  be  granted  that  the  failure  is  com- 
plete and  monumental  and  that  would  mean 
little.  The  great  point  is  that  it  was  neverthe- 
less government  in  the  name  of  the  working 
class;  it  did  for  a  year  and  a  half  control  all 
the  affairs  of  Kussia.  That  it  failed,  agitators 
will  say,  was  probably  because  the  Russians 
did  not  know  how  to  manage  it.  Other  people, 
more  gifted  and  experienced,  would  make  a  suc- 
cess of  it,  and  in  any  event  all  other  forms  of 
government  have  proved  to  be  of  no  use  nor  pro- 
tection to  the  workers;  we  are  in  favor  of  this 


330      BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

form  because  it  puts  all  the  power  into  our 
hands. 

Such  is  the  peril.  What  is  the  remedy?  Force? 

Nothing  could  be  more  foolish  or  more  dis- 
astrous. Attempts  to  suppress  Bolshevism  will 
merely  elevate  it  into  a  world-wide  cause. 
Let  the  existing  governments  of  the  world 
turn  to  war  on  Bolshevism  and  they  will 
make  Bolshevism  the  passionate  creed  of  mil- 
lions that  now  care  nothing  for  it.  I  have 
read  with  astonishment  some  of  the  argu- 
ments that  urge  upon  the  United  States  this 
pregnant  form  of  trouble  making.  The  gentle- 
men that  propose  it  do  not  seem  to  be  aware  that 
they  are  parroting  the  arguments  used  in 
1792  by  the  reactionaries  of  Europe  against  the 
French  Revolution.  In  exactly  the  same  words 
the  Revolutionary  patriots  were  denounced  as 
the  enemies  of  mankind,  the  beasts  whose  crime 
cried  to  heaven  and  all  the  gracious  kings  of 
Europe  for  punishment.  Do  you  remember? 
So  the  gracious  kings  started  out  to  punish 
these  crimes  and  restore  the  gracious  Bourbons, 
and  the  world  has  excellent  reason  to  bear  in 
mind  what  followed.  France  strung  with  a  sub- 
lime enthusiasm  doing  battle  against  all  the 
armies  of  the  gracious  kings  and  beating  them 
to  bits. 


PALLIATIVES   AND   REMEDIES  331 

Can  all  the  armies  of  the  world  shoot  to  death 
an  idea? 

I  know  very  well  that  in  my  own  country 
many  employers  comfort  themselves  with  the 
thought  that  if  Bolshevism  really  raises  its  head 
there  are  troops  enough  to  shoot  it  down  so 
that  all  will  be  well  with  us.  I  suggest,  gen- 
tlemen, that  the  time  for  that  kind  of  thing 
has  gone  by.  Let  us  be  frank  about  it.  Unless 
you  are  willing  to  run  the  risk  of  the  most  ter- 
rific convulsions  ever  known  in  human  society 
it  would  seem  well  to  lay  aside  any  such 
thoughts.  You  are  to  bear  in  mind  that  a  large 
part  of  the  population  of  Europe  is  in  dire  want. 
Empty  bellies  will  hear  naught  of  reason.  It 
is  to  starving  men  that  Bolshevism  preaches 
most  effectively.  I  should  think  that  such  a  time 
and  such  a  condition  were  the  worst  possible 
for  the  picking  of  quarrels  between  employer 
and  employed.  I  know  this  is  the  case  in 
Europe,  and  believe  it  is  in  America  substan- 
tially the  same.  I  can  assure  all  interested  in- 
quirers that  in  Europe  in  those  early  days  of 
1919  thoughtful  men  were  praying  that  lamp 
posts  might  continue  to  be  for  the  lighting  of 
the  city.  Their  use  for  anything  in  the  gallows 
line  is  not  to  be  indifferently  regarded,  be- 
lieve me. 


332       BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

And  after  all,  this  Bolshevism — it  did  not 
come  into  being  of  itself.    It  was  not  a  sporadic 
eruption  from  accidental  causes  and  we  shall 
have  now  to  surrender  our  once  pleasing  dream 
that  it  was  but  racial — the  low,  inferior  and 
ignorant  Russian  and  so  on.    When  we  see  some 
of  the  foremost  minds  of  Germany  fighting  for 
it  and  dying  for  it  we  know  that  it  is  no  peculiar 
product  of  any  one  race.    What  is  it  then?    I 
think  I  have  shown  that  one  secret  of  its  hold 
is  psychological  if  not  pathological,  but  far  back 
of  all  that,  it  is  the  product  of  the  monstrous 
injustice  that  labor  suffers ;  it  embodies  a  pro- 
test.   It  is  an  indication  that  labor  will  not  con- 
tinue always  to  produce  the  wealth  of  the  world 
and  accept  a  very  small  part  of  the  wealth  it 
produces.     The  doom  of  the  wage  system  is 
foreshadowed  in  these  developments.    We  need 
not  try  to  steel  ourselves  to  the  solemn  dread 
warning  of  these  events.    Bolshevism  may  not 
be  the  weapon  with  which  that  system  is  slain. 
Let  us  earnestly  hope  that  it  will  not  be,  for 
Bolshevism  means  chaos.    Not  merely  the  wage 
system  but  the  whole  structure  of  organized 
society  would  go  down  before  it.     Civilization 
would  revert  to  something  akin  to  the  Stone 
Age  and  human  progress  would  have  to  start 
again  from  a  new  mark  in  the  jungle. 


PALLIATIVES   AND   REMEDIES  333 

And  another  thing.  Do  not  imagino  that  any- 
considerable  number  of  men  believe  they  are 
substantially  wronged  without  some  reason  for 
that  belief.  One  man  might  imagine  a  grievance 
and  hold  to  it  year  in  and  year  out,  but  not  a 
million  men — no,  not  by  any  human  possibility. 
And  the  fact  that  you  cannot  see  what  they  are 
unhappy  about  is  but  trivial.  You  are  happy 
and  contented  and  therefore  why  do  they  com- 
plain? They  complain  because  they  create 
wealth  and  get  none  of  it.  Because  they  bear 
the  world  upon  their  shoulders  and  have  its  con- 
tempt and  derision.  Because  their  children  are 
denied  a  fair  chance  for  education  and  happi- 
ness. Because  they  have  in  no  way  recognition 
in  proportion  to  their  usefulness  to  society. 
And  until  some  of  this  injustice  is  corrected 
there  Avill  be  only  a  succession  of  red  specters 
like  Bolshevism  or  else  the  universal  wreck. 

But  the  sane  way  to  deal  mth  the  Bolshevic 
menace  is  to  acknowledge  the  justice  of  labor's 
cause  and  the  real  position,  hitherto  obscured, 
that  labor  occupies  in  the  world's  affairs.  "We 
may  as  well  recognize  the  fact  that  the  thesis 
with  which  Lenine  started  is  substantially  sound. 
Far  as  he  went  astray  in  the  application, 
strange  as  have  been  his  wanderings  in  the 
regions  of  madness,  he  began  with  undeniable 


334      BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE  UNITED   STATES 

truths.  Hitherto  industry  in  this  world  has  been 
arranged,  as  he  said,  on  a  basis  lop-sided  and 
unfair.  The  notion  that  capital  is  more  impor- 
tant than  labor  is  without  a  supporting  fact. 
Labor  is,  always  was  and  always  must  be  more 
important  than  capital.  Yet  in  all  the  world 
inferior  capital  has  the  larger  share  of  both 
honors  and  rewards.  In  that  arrangement  is 
neither  justice,  truth,  reason  nor  safety.  We 
have  come  to  a  point  where  we  can  no  longer 
proceed  under  it.  The  question  is  whether  we 
shall  do  away  with  it  justly  and  soberly,  after 
the  manner  of  reasoning  men,  or  whether  we 
shall  cling  to  it  until  in  Bolshevism  or  another 
eruption  still  more  terrible  the  key  to  the 
world's  treasury  is  snatched  from  hands  that 
have  clutched  it  too  long. 

I  mean  that  there  ought  to  be  a  much  fairer 
distribution  of  the  fruits  of  industry  and  a  much 
fairer  recognition  of  labor  in  government, 
public  affairs,  social  and  political  institutions. 
I  mean  that  in  all  industry  the  larger  share  of 
the  returns  should  go  to  those  that  labor  in  it 
and  the  smaller  share  of  the  returns  to  those 
that  merely  invest  money  in  it.  At  present  the 
basis  is  all  the  other  way;  we  shall  have  to  re- 
verse the  present  basis.  I  mean  also  that  the 
men  that  work  in  any  industry  ought  to  have 


PALLIATIVES   AND   REMEDIES  335 

the  same  voice  in  the  management  of  that  in- 
dustry as  the  men  that  put  money  into  it.  And  I 
mean  that  the  producers  ought  to  be  represented 
in  every  legislative  body  and  every  phase  of  the 
government  in  proportion  to  their  numbers. 

If  these  seem  to  the  conservative  mind  sug- 
gestions too  radical  and  sweeping  I  can  only 
say  that  the  volcano  with  which  Europe  is  now 
threatened  is  much  more  radical  and  sweeping; 
also  in  many  other  respects  undesirable.  I  had 
much  rather  see  the  house  of  civilization  al- 
tered, even  with  radical  and  sweeping  changes, 
than  to  see  the  whole  thing  fall  into  the  cellar, 
and  it  will  be  either  one  or  the  other. 

Men  that  believe  they  are  fairly  and  honestly 
treated  do  not  listen  to  Bolshevism.  Popula- 
tions that  dwell  on  a  basis  of  equality  have 
nothing  to  revolt  about.  Where  there  is  no 
wrong  there  is  nothing  to  revenge.  The  true 
bulwark  against  Bolshevism,  Anarchism  and  all 
other  foes  of  society  is  not  guns  and  bullets 
but  good-will,  kindness,  equity,  the  democratiz- 
ing of  industry  no  less  than  of  government,  the 
equalizing  of  opportunities  for  culture,  light, 
happiness,  the  realities  of.  living.  If  there  is 
one  thing  that  these  recent  red  years  have  dem- 
onstrated it  is  that  society  cannot  go  on  pro- 
ducing slums  and  ignoring  them,  condemning 


336   BOLSHEVISM  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES 

the  majority  of  mankind  to  insufficiency  and 
scorning  them,  maintaining  at  one  and  the  same 
time  senseless  luxury  for  a  few  and  senseless 
degradation  for  the  many.  Hitherto  those  that 
have  uttered  warnings  against  this  abnormal 
and  perilous  condition  have  been  viewed  as  doc- 
trinaires or  demagogues  or  pestilent  trouble 
makers.  Time  has  verified  all  their  forecasts. 
It  is  not  they  now  that  stand  and  declaim 
against  the  unfair  distribution  of  the  fruits  of 
industry.  It  is  the  specter  of  red  ruin, 
loosed  upon  the  world  to  shake  down  the  fair 
houses  of  the  fortunate  and  eclipse  our  civiliza- 
tion in  a  darker  gloom  than  has  swallowed  up 
the  others. 

I  have  set  down  here  the  outline  of  a  strange 
and  terrible  chapter  in  the  history  of  human 
delusions  with  the  hope  that  the  record  may 
serve  in  some  way  to  warn  my  countrymen. 
Bolshevism  has  revealed  to  us  in  startling 
fashion  the  widespread  existence  among  intelli- 
gent and  educated  persons  of  an  order  of  mind 
not  before  connoted.  It  is  a  mind  that  does  not 
coordinate,  is  able  to  act  but  not  to  reflect,  can 
by  specious  cries  be  led  into  strange  fanati- 
cisms, accepts  labels  without  inquiry  as  to  the 
thing  within,  sincerely  and  unselfishly  gives 
itself  to  the  propaganda  of  half  truth.    It  is  a 


PALLIATIVES   AND    REMEDIES  337 

mind  that  will  instantly  undertake  the  most  dif- 
ficult and  recondite  tasks  of  government  al- 
though innocent  of  knowledge  or  means  whereby 
those  tasks  can  be  performed.  It  is  a  mind  that 
burns  with  enthusiasm  for  a  movement  of  to- 
day but  is  congenitally  unable  to  see  the  conse- 
quences upon  to-morrow.  The  existence  in 
cloisters  of  some  hundreds  or  thousands  of  such 
minds  would  disturb  society  little.  The  grave 
fact  that  Bolshevism  has  disclosed  to  us  is  that 
these  minds  exist  by  the  million  and  are  active, 
voluble  and  potent  in  public  affairs. 

But  greater  still  is  the  profound  lesson  of 
men's  interdependence.  Taught  by  these  dis- 
asters w^e  may  now  see  clearly  that  the  time 
has  long  gone  by  when  man  could  be  sufficient 
unto  himself  in  his  way  of  daily  life;  as  long 
gone  by  as  the  time  when  in  the  freedom  of 
the  jungle  or  the  desert  he  could  be  a  law  unto 
himself.  His  daily  life  now  depends  upon  thou- 
sands of  other  men  and  other  men's  lives  upon 
him.  We  are  to  be  on  our  guard  against  any 
theory  of  society  that  ignores  this  pivotal  fact. 
For  centuries  there  has  been  developing  a  vast, 
intricate,  complex  system  by  which  individual 
men  labor  to  produce  single  commodities  where 
and  how  these  can  be  produced  best  and  other 
men  operate  the  machinery  by  which  these  prod- 


338       BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

nets  are  distributed.  The  development  of  this 
system  and  of  this  machinery  has  gone  on 
silently  and  unobserved  far  beyond  the  ken  of 
any  of  us.  Of  a  sudden  the  fact  is  laid  bare 
that  with  this  system  and  this  machinery  mod- 
ern man  sustains  the  life  in  his  body.  Nothing 
else  in  a  material  way  is  so  important  to  him. 

As  it  is  with  individuals  so  it  is  with  nations. 
There  was  a  time  when  Holland  lived  within 
herself,  raising  on  her  rich  black  soil  whatever 
fed  her  people.  To-day  she  is  the  helpless  de- 
pendent upon  steamships  and  railroads.  Inter- 
fere with  either  and  her  people  begin  to  starve 
and  die.  In  1918,  menaced  by  the  submarine 
in  the  great  war,  having  no  bread,  she  began 
to  raise  wheat.  In  one  week  the  government 
slaughtered  50,000  cattle  to  keep  them  from 
starving;  there  was  no  more  cattle  fodder.  If 
she  raises  wheat  she  must  import  fodder;  if 
she  raises  fodder  she  must  import  wheat.  As 
a  result  of  the  necessary  slaughter  of  cattle  the 
people  of  Holland  were  eighteen  months  with- 
out meat,  lived  upon  an  allowance  of  one-half 
pound  in  ten  days  of  fats  of  all  kinds,  one-tenth 
of  a  litre  of  milk  a  day,  two  pounds  of  bread 
in  five  days,  the  bread  being  made  of  potatoes, 
beans,  peas,  linseed,  anything  that  could  be 
swept  together,  while  consumption,  dysentery 


PALLIATIVES   AND   REMEDIES  339 

and  famine  fattened  the  graveyards,  and 
shortly  before  the  war  closed  men  looked  into 
one  another's  faces  with  blank  despair. 

Yet  Holland  was  accounted  before  the  war 
a  rich  country;  it  had  prospered  and  developed 
marvelously.  Yes,  but  its  development  had  been 
along  these  strict  lines  that  each  man  should 
produce  the  one  thing  he  could  produce  best  and 
then  there  should  be  an  interchange  of  products. 

Similarly,  in  Great  Britain.  Before  1846  it 
was  largely  an  agricultural  country  and  men 
still  clung  to  the  notion  that  it  should  feed  itself. 
When  once  that  notion  was  definitely  given 
over,  Great  Britain  changed  with  marvelous 
rapidity  from  an  agricultural  to  a  manufactur- 
ing countr3^  In  1905  only  one-seventh  as  much 
land  was  cultivated  as  had  been  cultivated  in 
1846.  In  vain  uneasy  souls  declared  the  change 
fraught  with  deadly  danger,  pointing  out  that 
the  nation  now  lived  from  hand  to  mouth  de- 
pendent upon  ocean  transport  to  bring  it  from 
other  countries  the  food  supplies  it  no  longer 
raised  for  itself.  Yet  it  was  in  fact  but  keeping 
step  ^Adth  evolution's  march;  it  was  producing 
that  which  it  could  produce  best  and  exchanging 
this  with  other  countries  for  the  food  it  was  no 
longer  fitted  to  bring  forth. 

When  the  war  came  and  even  partly  dislo- 


340       BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES 

cated  this  machinery  of  distribution,  Great 
Britain  stood  face  to  face  with  the  shape  of 
famine.  Yet  so  firmly  was  the  system  fixed 
upon  it  that  despite  the  most  vigorous  and  the 
most  ably  directed  efforts  the  country  could  not 
again  produce  the  food  it  used  to  produce. 

This  is  the  system  by  which  civilized  man 
has  come  to  live.  Say  that  it  is  inadequate, 
clumsy,  foolish,  extravagant.  Say  that  it 
wastes,  that  it  is  a  ceaseless  source  of  misery. 
Yet  poor  as  it  is,  it  manages  to  do  a  part  of 
the  work,  it  keeps  most  of  us  alive.  And  the 
great  fact  now  made  clear  to  us  is  that  who- 
soever would  change  it  must  have  ready  an- 
other system  at  least  as  well  organized  to  take 
its  place.  He  cannot  abolish  this  and  trust  to 
luck  that  out  of  the  chaos  will  arise  another. 

Changed  this  must  be,  and  will  be,  but  not 
by  Bolshevism  and  Anarchism ;  not  by  shooting 
men  and  starving  children.  The  doom  of  the 
competitive  system  is  inevitable  and  not  far  off ; 
the  cooperative  system  that  will  take  its  place 
is  already  in  sight.  By  no  possibility  can  the 
substitution  of  the  one  for  the  other  be  pre- 
vented if  civilization  is  to  continue,  for  the  one 
great,  all-sufficient  reason  that  competition  is 
discord  and  cooperation  is  harmony.  But  the 
change  '>^dll  be  made  by  constructive,  not  by  de- 


PALLIATIVES   AND   REMEDIES  341 

structive  means.  Bloodshed  and  violence  will 
not  hasten  but  only  hold  it  back.  Fragment  by 
fragment,  sometimes  quickly,  sometimes  slowly, 
the  old  system  will  be  crumbled  and  discarded, 
but  the  instruments  that  will  displace  it  will  be 
reason  and  not  guns,  love  and  not  revenge. 
Device  by  device  the  old  outworn  services  will 
disappear  as  new  and  better  services  are  con- 
structed, but  peacefully,  without  convulsions, 
that  man  may  live  and  not  die. 


THE  END 


I 


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